Requiem
by incandescens
Summary: A dark story that involves Bleach and vampires. Various warnings as appropriate. May not have a happy ending. Set after the Soul Society arc. At night, the vampires come out.
1. Chapter One

**REQUIEM**

**CHAPTER ONE**

The darkness outside was as thick as honey, covering Karakura in rich shadows that draped the alleys and curtained the streets. Rukia sat curled up in the window, and watched Renji and Ichigo fighting over the computer.

It was comforting, she vaguely supposed, to know that they weren't too depressed by the current situation. That they felt cheerful enough to be rolling on the ground right now, trying to grab each others' hair.

Or perhaps they were just stupid.

She rubbed at her neck thoughtfully.

Last night she had had nightmares, again, of that moment when her big brother had thrown himself between her and Ichimaru Gin's blade. So much blood. She had killed before, she had seen killing before, but all the blood, all over her, her _brother's_ blood . . . It had not been till later, when Fourth Division had been bandaging wounds and mending bodies that she had found that she had taken a wound herself to her neck, just beside that hated collar, a cut as clean as a blade's edge. Aizen must have done it when he had pulled her towards him. She hadn't noticed, then. There had been other things to notice.

She supposed that her posting back here, with Renji for backup, was Soul Society's idea of an apology -- _we regret assuming you messed up the job, so here it is back again, and the fact that we trust you enough to give it back should be all the apology that you could possibly require_ -- and it was enough, most of the time.

"Shut up, you morons," she suggested, "or Ichigo's father will hear you."

Renji rolled off Ichigo and sat up. "We oughta be going, anyhow. Can't stay here all night." He winked at Ichigo.

"Morons," Rukia muttered, but her heart wasn't in it. The thin moonlight seemed to stroke along her skin like a physical presence, and she wanted to be out there tonight, under the night sky, free to leap from roof to roof and feel the wind in her hair. And maybe, later, other things with Renji -- she found herself eyeing the line of his neck, the width of his shoulders, and remembering the taste of his skin from other times.

It felt as if the night was waiting for her.

* * *

They had split up in order to cover more ground during their patrol of the area, but were close enough that any significant flares of reiatsu should be noticeable. Ichigo had taken the north, Renji the south-west, Rukia the south-east. Renji and Ruki had left their gigai behind in the hotel room that they were sharing. It'd take too long and be too risky if they had to abandon them in the middle of a fight.

A brush of reiatsu stroked across her skin from a few streets away. She leapt to a rooftop, then to a wall, and silenced her own strength as she approached. Renji and Ichigo might want to charge in, blades at the ready, broadcasting their presence; she had learned the folly of that. Besides, it might be something unthreatening, such as Quincy Ishida, or Inoue Orihime, and she did dislike making a fool of herself.

Moonlight painted her in shades of white and black as she sidled through the shadows.

The reiatsu surged, fluttered like a heartbeat, and then subsided again.

She turned the corner, and saw the body lying in the middle of the street. An unknown, a nobody, a living human. Training kept her recording the facts calmly; she knew how to deal with ghosts, but it was harder to deal with the dying. He was lying there in a spreading pool of blood, quietly dying, without even the strength to call out, and his reiatsu whispered in decreasing circles with each fading heartbeat. He must have had enough power to get into danger, but not enough to be useful.

Rukia moved to kneel beside him. He had been sliced open by something like claws, and she could tell at a glance there was no saving him. All that she could give him was a moment's companionship, and the burial of his soul if it was needed.

But how could this have happened? Given the number of Hollows lately, she could understand if his fragment of power had attracted some attention. Unfortunate, but possible. But in that case, where had the Hollow gone? She would have expected it to stay and to finish it off. Few Hollows would have been frightened away by her approach -- to be fair, few Hollows would have noticed it. It wasn't as if she had a Captain's power.

The man quietly stopped breathing. His spirit was gone with that last exhalation; he needed no soul burial. She was glad of that.

Reiatsu suddenly thrummed along her nerves from both north and south like a close-struck drum, loud and almost painful, but forcibly subdued. She looked to one end of the street, then to another.

At the south end of the street, white-robed, smirking, stood Ichimaru Gin. At the north end, white-robed, no longer wearing glasses, stood Aizen Sousuke.

So. Her Academy-trained combat mind said _the victim was left here as bait._ But had it been her they were waiting for, or just whichever shinigami would come here first? Most likely Ichigo. He'd be the one that they would be expecting to patrol.

_So how do I deal with someone who can outfight me, outrun me, and --_ Conscious thought supplied no suggestions except _die bravely_. The body wanted to live, though, and the body moved, and she ran like a hare. She leaped, and ran along the top of the wall, the _tap tap tap_ of her light feet echoing along the quiet streets, and above her the moon dwindled to a crescent.

The two who had once been Captains moved faster; she ran like a hunted animal, but they were the wind, white and deadly. Aizen snatched her out of the air as they passed her, one hand on her girdle and the other knotted in her hair, and came to a stop with her pinned against a wall, his arm across her body. "Kuchiki Rukia," he greeted her, not even out of breath.

Ichimaru chuckled.

She was bleeding again, a thin trickle from the wound in her neck.

"Don't think I'm going to give Ichigo to you," she snarled. "I'm worthless to you this time."

Aizen looked down at her. His face was different without the glasses. There was something naked in his eyes that she had not seen before, not even when he had thrust his hand into her body and drawn out the Hougyouku. "Oh, I don't think so, Rukia. I don't think so at all."

He smiled, and as his lips curved she saw a glint of fangs.

_oh wait no this cannot be true this cannot possibly be true this sort of thing does not exist_

"It is true," he said, answering the question before she could speak it out loud. "Haven't you ever thought about what Hollows _are_, Rukia?"

Again the use of her personal name as if he had some sort of right to it. There were three people in the world who could call her that and he was not one of them.

"Hunger." He moved his right hand from her hair to stroke down the side of her face, pausing as his fingers brushed against the edges of the cut in her neck. "Don't you remember --"

"Let _go_ of me," she gasped, unwilling to endure it a moment longer, and tried to pull the energies for kidou from her spirit. She didn't have the time to use the full chant or gestures, but perhaps she could just startle him enough to get loose, or so that someone else would sense the reiatsu . . .

Ichimaru came towards her in a drift of white, and caught her left wrist in one hand, pressing a finger of his other hand against her lips. "Naughty, naughty, Kuchiki-kun. She's going to alert someone if we let her, Aizen-taichou." He snatched the finger back again as she tried to bite. "Awww. I like you better this way, Kuchiki-kun. All angry."

"If you think I care at all what you want or how you like me," she spat at him, "then you are wasting your time."

Aizen took his hand from her neck and raised it to his mouth, licking her blood from where it stained his fingers. She looked at him, and swallowed, nauseated.

"What do you know about vampires, Rukia?" Aizen asked.

"They don't exist," she said numbly.

"That's what they tell you." Aizen smiled again. The moonlight leached all the colour from him. His hair, his eyes, his lips were dark as dried blood.

She retreated into the comfort of icy control. "If there were vampires," she said, "then I can think of nobody more appropriate than yourselves to be such things."

Ichimaru smiled. "And aren't you going to ask us what's going on?"

"You'd tell me?" She couldn't keep the disbelief out of her voice.

"Oh no," Ichimaru said, and ran his fingernail along her wrist, stroking the blue lines of her veins. "I'm just following my Captain's orders."

"It could have been Renji," Aizen murmured, too close to her ear. "It had to be either him or you. We need someone who can open a door for us to Seireitai."

She turned her head to look at his eyes. "You know that I'm not going to do that," she said, perfectly flat, perfectly level, and prayed that she could keep the promise to herself. "And Renji never would."

"That's part of it." There was a mild curiosity in Aizen's eyes that made her shiver. "If this doesn't work, then there will be other ways we can try. But if it does -- well, matters will be so much simpler."

Ichimaru coughed. "Time factor, Captain."

"True." Aizen lowered his hand to her face, fingers brushing her chin, then tilted her head to one side to expose the bleeding cut in her neck. He didn't even bother to say anything else, but bent to set his lips against it.

It felt good in ways that it shouldn't have. She tried to break loose, but she didn't have the leverage or the strength, and he held her against the wall easily enough. She tried to put herself at a distance, to be not-there just as she would have in a fight or if she had been in pain, but she couldn't cut herself off from her body. She could feel herself relaxing into it, as though each time he swallowed, each time his tongue flicked the edges of the wound, threads seemed to stroke along her nerves (veins? arteries? blood was moving through her and into him and he was killing her but he was taking his time about it and it felt so good) and she gave a little sigh as she felt Ichimaru Gin's lips against her wrist and then the shallow sting of teeth, as small an irritation as the cut of a sword, and they were holding her, it was all right, they were easing her down to the ground and she opened her eyes for a moment to see them above her, pale against the dark sky.

The darkness on their mouths was her blood. They were killing her.

"Stop," she said, and almost _please_.

Ichimaru wiped his mouth with the tips of his fingers, then licked them clean, tongue moving against them in a way that made her shudder. "You'd better finish her off, Captain," he said. "See if the imprinting works properly."

Aizen knelt beside her and slid an arm under her, drawing her against his chest, and she was cradled in the white silk of his robe, feeling its softness against her cheek, feeling his reiatsu beating against her and overshadowing her. She could see the clouds shifting as he bent his head again, watch the long striated patterns of shadow and light. His lips moved on her neck as if he were kissing her, as if he were speaking to her, and her blood answered him, sweeping through her in a wave that left her trembling in his arms and gasping, so tired, barely breathing now, and the moon was clear overhead for a moment and then it was dark, and her thoughts tangled for a moment and then fell apart.

_I thought I remembered, I thought the moon knew me, do not leave me, brother, you said you would protect me_

She had forgotten what it felt like to die. Now she knew.


	2. Chapter Two

**REQUIEM**

**CHAPTER TWO**

"All right," Ichigo said, looking at the puddle of blood, the footprints. His voice was quite sane and reasonable. "We have to find her."

Renji nodded. He had stopped clenching his hand on the hilt of Zabimaru by now, stopped running his hands through the tail of his hair. "Urahara will help."

"Can't you . . ." Ichigo trailed off. He didn't know what could be done with this sort of thing. Then his mind clicked over and he remembered. "Wait. Ishida first."

Renji blinked. "Why him?"

"He can see stuff. And he lives closer to here." _And I don't trust that bastard Urahara,_ Ichigo would have added, but he kept his mouth shut in case they would have no other choice.

"Okay. We'll try him first." There was iron control in Renji's face, in the way that he stood. "Tell you one thing, though."

"What?"

"Why _didn't_ we hear anything? Okay, so your ability to sense stuff is crap, and mine's not that much better, but if it had been a proper fight, or if she'd pulled her zanpakutou, we should have heard something."

"Mm." Ichigo shrugged. "So if we should, then he definitely should. Come on."

Renji followed. _Of course nothing's happened to her,_ he reassured himself. _Kuchiki-taichou'd really kill her this time if she did anything stupid._

* * *

Ishida woke to the sound of claws scraping at his window. He rolled out of bed with his hand already moving into position to draw his bow, before he saw who was standing on the windowsill, and before he let himself remember that he no longer had that power.

He did in dreams. The dreams were good while they lasted, and then they hurt, how they hurt.

Kurosaki was perched on his windowsill, with another shinigami -- he reached to the bedside table for his glasses, and identified the long hair and the tattoos. Abarai-fukutaichou. Right. Walking across to the window, feet cold on the wooden floor, he prepared a scowl that would dismiss them before they could ask anything that he didn't want to answer.

He slid the window up. Kurosaki promptly shoved his foot into the breach. "Let us in," he hissed.

A Quincy should not hesitate if innocents were at risk, and Kurosaki wouldn't be acting like this over a trivial matter. He disengaged the latch, then threw the window fully open, letting the two shinigami clamber inside. _I am still a Quincy. Even if . . ._ "What is it?" he asked.

"Rukia's missing," Abarai said. "You've got good sensitivity. Can you feel anything?"

"I was asleep earlier." He smoothed his hair back, trying to think. "Get away from the window, please. Let me look."

He could still see. Even if he had burned out every bit of his own power, he hadn't lost his natural sensitivity, or his trained perceptions. He could feel the two shinigami next to him like spouting geysers, see their threads of power as red as blood. If Kuchiki-san was nearby, it ought to be possible to feel her as well. It wasn't as if there was anyone else nearby he could mistake for her.

He frowned. "No. Nothing. I'm sorry." This part of the town was quiet, nearly spiritually dead. It had been one of the reasons he'd chosen it as a place to rent a room. "There -- might have been something earlier, that way, to the north. But I can't feel anything now."

Abarai and Kurosaki exchanged glances. "Right," Kurosaki said. "Thanks for your time."

Ishida put his hands on his hips. "What's going on? Is Kuchiki-san in trouble?"

"We don't know," Abarai said. He glared at Ishida. "We're trying to find out."

"If she is --" he began, before remembering how much help he could be now.

Kurosaki nodded, though, taking the words for a full promise. "Yeah, sure. I know. C'mon, Renji."

The two were gone through the window in a moment, leaving the night air pouring in, and Ishida standing there in his glasses and nightshirt, powerless.

* * *

The little girl came to the door when they banged on it, in a long gown that dragged on the floor, with her hair trailing round her shoulders, and looked up at them with big sad eyes. "Is it important?" she asked. "The manager is asleep."

"The hell it is," Ichigo said, and kicked the door fully open. "Don't tell me that bastard sleeps. He's always up plotting something. We've got a problem. Either we can come up to him, or he can come down to us. His choice."

The little boy poked his head round the far door. "I'll go and fetch him," he said sullenly. "Don't blame me if he's annoyed."

Ichigo barged into the shop, then held the door open long enough for Renji to join him before he let the girl shut it. The place was small and frowsty, giving no sign of the massive underground training facility beneath it, and oddly unpleasant by night. There was too much dust, and too many piles of unmarked goods that were oddly shaped or smelt strange.

The little girl didn't go away. She just stood there and watched them.

"Oi," Renji said to her. "Is Shihouin Yoruichi around?"

The girl shook her head. "Yoruichi-sama is out of town tonight. She will be back later. Is it about her that you want to see the manager?"

"Naah," Renji said. "Just wondering." He glanced to Ichigo. Ichigo shrugged.

The stairs beyond the far door creaked in rhythm with the sound of footsteps, and Urahara Kisuke blearily stepped into the room. His hat was balanced halfway across his head as though he could not bring himself to appear in public without it, and his usual robe was thrown on loosely, showing a lot of bare arm and leg. He had tucked his sword-cane under one arm, and it rattled against the side of the doorframe as he entered. "Mnh," he said in lazy greeting, eyes blurred under the shadows of his hat. "Gentlemen. Customers. What can I do for you at this," he yawned, "late hour."

"You can find Rukia for us," Ichigo said bluntly. "She was attacked by a Hollow and now we can't locate her, and she hasn't returned to her gigai."

Urahara tilted his head and stared at Ichigo. "Why on earth would a Hollow want to attack Kuchiki-san rather than you? You two would look much tastier."

Renji growled deep in his throat. "Forget that shit. Maybe she walked into the wrong thing at the wrong moment. I haven't got much kidou. Ichigo here's got fuck all. You're the expert. We just need you to find out where she is."

Urahara frowned. "Just like," he snapped his fingers, "that?"

Renji folded his arms. "Don't give us that crap. We know who you were. You telling us you can't find her?"

"Mm." Urahara snapped a fan out of nowhere in particular and waved it vaguely. "Well, it's at least plausible . . . How do you know she was attacked by a Hollow?"

"We found a body," Ichigo said. "It was in the area she'd been patrolling. Something with claws had killed it. Not a sword." He remembered the pooling blood that had spread to the gutter, marking a dark line along it to the drain. "There were footprints leading away from it, her size, sandals. Running."

"Hmm," Urahara said thoughtfully. He turned to Renji. "Any other footprints around?"

Renji shook his head. "Couldn't see any."

"How very odd." Urahara frowned. "Very well. As you are respected customers, I'll put this on your tab -- oh, stop that, Abarai-san. You know I just want to help." His lips curled into a closed smile. "Always glad to be of assistance. Wait there. I'll be out in a moment." He stepped back through the doorway again.

Renji leaned against the wall. Ichigo wandered around the room, peering at barred cases and crates with foreign lettering on them. They didn't speak to each other.

It was ten minutes before Urahara reappeared, and he was frowning. He held up one hand before they could speak. "I can't tell you, and that's odd in itself."

"Why the hell not?" Ichigo demanded. "You've always known what's going on in the past."

"Yes, well." Urahara rubbed at the bridge of his nose. For a moment he looked tired, then he simply seemed dark-eyed and sly again. "Kurosaki-san! You are a valued customer of mine, but you know little about kidou. Even Abarai-san here knows more than you do."

"Watch the even," Renji growled.

Urahara shrugged. "I'm sure you're competent with combat techniques, Abarai-san, but the more scientific aspects aren't your field. Kuchiki Rukia might be beyond Karakura and outside my reach, or she might be hidden by high-level kidou, or she might be in another world, or she might be dead, but at the moment, I can't tell which."

"Hidden?" Ichigo's hand went to Zangetsu's hilt. "You mean that man -- Aizen --"

"Hold it." Renji caught Ichigo's wrist. "Why would that bastard want her? I want him dead as much as you do, Kurosaki, but without that thing in her, he doesn't have a motive for attacking her again."

Ichigo scowled.

"Abarai-san is right," Urahara added seriously. "Aizen Sousuke wouldn't waste his time on vengeance when he's got so much else to be busy with. There are other possible explanations. She might have had to go outside the boundaries of Karakura, and be taking a while to get back, especially if she's exhausted. Or she might have had to retreat to Seireitai. You and she both have keys to the gates, don't you?" he asked Renji.

Renji nodded. "If she'd been badly wounded, or if she'd tried luring it somewhere . . ." He shrugged, releasing Ichigo's wrist. "Rukia knows the area round here, right? If she had to run to look for a better place to fight, she would, and if it had been between us and her anyhow --"

"Yeah." Ichigo shrugged, hunching his shoulders. "Look, you can get to Soul Society, right? Can you just get there fast to check if she is there?" _And kick her ass if she is for worrying us like this,_ he would have added, but he could already see the thought in Renji's eyes.

"Yeah. No problem."

"Outside, please," Urahara said sharply, "and preferably down the road."

"Fine," Renji snapped. "We may be back."

"Come at a more reasonable hour, Abarai-san," Urahara recommended, yawning again. "Even for my favourite customers . . ."

Renji stalked out, followed by Ichigo. They stood together in the street for a moment.

"How long do you think you'll be?" Ichigo asked.

"I can't be sure." Renji scratched his head. "Time can get a bit strange between here and there. Well, you know that. I should be back by tomorrow morning at the latest. Try and get some sleep."

Ichigo snorted. "You expect me to sleep?"

"I expect you to try." Renji punched his shoulder. "Cause we're gonna get her back if something _has _happened, right?"

"Oh yeah." Ichigo nodded. "No question."

"Then get some sleep." Renji waved as he began to walk down the road, swinging his zanpakutou from his shoulder. "See you tomorrow."

Light flared as the doors to Soul Society opened, and then the street darkened as they closed once more.

* * *

In her dreams, Orihime could hear a man tapping at her window. Tap tap tap. His fingers were long and slender and moved against the glass as though they would caress it, but they were cold and left no fingerprints behind them.

Let me in, he said, let me in.

She would have got up to let him in, but the Shun Shun Rikka sat on her pillow and scolded her (a dream? of course it was a dream) and Tsubaki pulled her hair until she said she was sorry and curled up under the quilt again, and she went back to sleep (of course it was a dream) ignoring the whispering from outside.

The next morning, dead flowers lay like snow outside the window.

* * *

The night had gone by and Renji hadn't come back.

The morning had gone by and Renji hadn't come back and Ichigo was sitting here at school and wanting to damn well kill something. He knew the others knew that something was wrong.

Chad and Ishida turned up on the roof at lunchtime. Orihime had gone off somewhere with Tatsuki. Ichigo decided this was a good thing. Orihime was the sort of person who might do something unpredictable when she heard Rukia was missing. (Unlike him.) He'd tell her later. Maybe this evening. As soon as Renji was back.

Ishida sat down and began to open up his lunchbox. "Any news?" he asked neutrally, his gaze down on his food.

Chad grunted a curious interrogative.

"No," Ichigo snapped. He opened his own lunchbox and stared at the contents. "Oh, shit," he added, momentarily diverted. "Dad made lunch."

Chad leaned across to peer at it. "Doesn't look like the stuff your sister usually does. Are those meant to be sandwiches?"

"I think so." Ichigo tentatively chewed on a corner. It didn't kill him. Yet.

"Something going on?" Chad asked tentatively.

Ichigo sighed. "Rukia vanished last night. Renji's gone to check if she went to Soul Society." He took another bite.

Wasabi peas. Why was he not surprised.

"What's that?" There was enough shock in Ishida's voice that Ichigo looked up to see the air in the middle of the roof twisting and unfolding into a long tunnel of opening doors. Renji was leading the way, a dark storm in his eyes and his blade in his hand, but there were other shinigami following him, their black robes shadowy ripples as they stepped through into the world of the living.

He'd seen them all before. Ikkaku. Yumichika. The vice-captain of Eighth, a stern-looking young woman in glasses and with a book under one arm. She gave Renji a brisk nod, then turned to close the gateway behind them as Renji walked over to Ichigo and the others.

"Okay," Renji said. "She's not there. I've got some help to find her. You'd better call in sick for the afternoon. You two, too," he said, with a nod to Chad and Ishida. "We're not sure what's going on, but we're going to find out."

* * *

Orihime was surprised, when she got back from lunch, to find out that Ichigo and Chad and Ishida had _all _got ill and had to go home.

It was quite obvious what had happened. Something must have gone wrong, so they'd all made their excuses and gone off to fight it. How very like them. She supposed -- she imagined -- that they must have been in too much of a hurry to take her along as well.

Perhaps, she reflected with determined cheerfulness, they'd just thought that it'd be an easy Hollow to beat and they wouldn't need her to heal them afterwards. That must be it.

A ball of paper landed on her desk. She opened it to read, in Tatsuki's handwriting, _Anything wrong?_

She glanced back over her shoulder to where Tatsuki was sitting at the next moment when the teacher was facing the blackboard, and mimed, _Everything's fine, I was just thinking for a moment, and do you want to come by for supper?_

Tatsuki mimed _Yes, please,_ then hastily sat straight and looked deeply interested as the teacher turned back again.

Orihime considered. She could always ask Ichigo about it after school, before supper, while she was doing the shopping. It'd be perfectly natural to stop round to see him if he'd been ill and bring him some food. She even had some of her special chocolate bean mochi from yesterday.

She sighed. Kuchiki-san probably never had this sort of problem with men.

* * *

Rukia opened her eyes.

The room was dark. She was cool but not cold; her arms were bare. She sat up on the pallet that she had been lying on

_something happened_

and looked down at herself. She was in a plain high-collared sleeveless robe of white silk. It reminded her of something earlier, but

_something happened_

there was a blankness in her mind, a buzzing whiteness which she could not go beyond for the moment.

Shirayuki lay beside her. She picked it up and rested it across her lap, trying to think.

She was so thirsty.

The door opened. Aizen-sama was standing there, and for a moment she wanted to kill him, to _hurt_ him, but then a calmness settled over her like the whiteness in her mind, a loyalty, an obedience. She quickly got to her feet and walked over towards him, Shirayuki's sheath in her hand, and looked up at him trustingly. He'd know what to do.

"There you are." Aizen ruffled her hair as he glanced back over his shoulder to Ichimaru-sama. "Everything seems in order. Shall we go?"

"Course." Ichimaru-sama smiled at her as she followed Aizen obediently. "Everything okay, Rukia-chan?"

"I . . . yes, sir." The words came with difficulty. Her mouth and throat were so dry.

_they killed you_

It didn't matter. Aizen-sama knew what to do.

_they killed you and they made you like them_

Something in the back of her mind was screaming, horrified, despairing, but none of it mattered now that Aizen-sama was here to tell her what to do.

Tousen-sama fell in behind her, his pace barely audible.

_the street, the moon, your blood_

She was so very thirsty. But Aizen-sama was there and she would follow him, and maybe soon he would take her somewhere that she could soothe this burning in her mouth, this thirst in her body, this ache in her teeth.

She was a ghost in white among taller ghosts, and she followed them placidly, her eyes dark rubies in the night.


	3. Chapter Three

**REQUIEM**

**CHAPTER THREE**

Renji tugged Ichigo to one side, while the female vice-captain closed the portal and the two Eleventh Division thugs surveyed the area with a looking-for-the-nearest-fight expression. Chad loomed across as well, while Ishida followed in a twitchy, uncertain, curious way.

"Okay," Renji said, sotto voce. "That," he jerked a thumb, "is Ise-fukutaichou, Ise Nanao of Eighth. She's good with kidou. If Urahara's not going to be any use, then Ise'll help us track what happened."

Ichigo stared at the woman in glasses. Sure, she looked the nerdy sort, but didn't this sort of situation deserve a Captain's attention? "What about her brother? Or her captain?"

Renji frowned. His brow-tattoos drew together. "Listen, this is important. Second have had reports that you-know-who's about to try something, which means there's currently a crisis situation and none of the Captains are leaving Soul Society unless we actually get proof that the bastard's down here and currently active. I don't like it any more than you do, and neither do either of the two people you mentioned, but they _can't_ come fucking down here for the moment. As it was, Ukitake-taichou got Shunsui-taichou to let him borrow Ise-fukutaichou because they're friends, but even then he had to get permission. This isn't a good situation and it isn't a fucking good moment for pissing contests. We get the proof, we get the help."

Ichigo sighed. "Okay. So where do we start?"

"We find the nearest Hollow and beat some fucking answers out of it," Ikkaku suggested. He cracked his knuckles in a vigorous way. "Trust me, they talk to each other. All we need to do is get it more terrified of us than it is of whatever else is out there. Then we purify it and send it on. Two for the price of one."

"That seems an elegant solution," the other Eleventh Division thug -- Yumichika, Ichigo remembered, that was his name, the one with the feathers superglued on his eyebrow -- "except that they're unlikely to want to come and play with the level of reiatsu that we represent. A Hollow that's intelligent enough to know what's going on won't want to tackle two Vice-Captains, two expert fighters, and . . ." He waved his fingers loosely in the direction of Ichigo and the others. "You lot."

"We could go and ask Urahara again," Renji said. "He could probably tell us where to find some Hollows who'd be helpful."

Ise Nanao walked over to join the group, steps neat and precise. "Do you still have Rukia's gigai, Kurosaki-san?" she asked Ichigo politely. "There are certain forms of location which can be used on it. It might at least give us a start."

"It's at the hotel where we're staying," Renji answered before Ichigo could reply. "But we can't go round carrying it through the streets."

Ise Nanao's lips pursed. "Indeed not."

"Are we being watched?" Ishida asked tentatively.

Everyone turned to look at him. Ikkaku snorted. "Now why the hell should you think that?"

Ishida stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Because that Aizen person isn't stupid."

Ise Nanao frowned. "Good point. Madarame-san, Ayasegawa-san, please assume gigai. I will do the same, and Abarai-fukutaichou can take us there discreetly. If we travel normally, we run too high a chance of being seen. Kurosaki-san, are you able to accompany us?"

The bell went.

"We'd have to miss school." Ichigo shrugged. "Yeah, sure. We'll just call in sick."

"At which point," Ishida snapped, "Aizen's watchers see all three of us heading out of school in a hurry -- and maybe Inoue-san too -- and all his alarms go off?"

"You're being paranoid," Renji began, and then cut himself off. "Or maybe you're not. How about we just take Ichigo for now, and you other two join us after school?"

"Sensible," Chad grunted. "It's not as if Ishida or I would be much use for the moment, and he may be right that we're being watched."

Ichigo nodded. "Okay. If you others will come with Renji and me. Chad, can you report me in sick with something?"

"I'll tell them you tried to eat your father's cooking," Chad said gravely, "and you went home urgently with projectile vomiting and diarrhoea."

* * *

In the end, Ichigo had blown all his cash for a taxi to get them to the hotel surreptitiously. Renji could be let out in public, and Ise Nanao's outfit was adequate if old-fashioned, but the other two didn't believe in being unobtrusive. Or in walking round town without weapons. He hoped Rukia appreciated this. Would appreciate this. Whatever.

Rukia's gigai lay there like a doll, arms folded on its chest. Ichigo found it easier to keep on thinking of it as an "it" rather than a "she" -- it wasn't Rukia, after all, and he was reminded of that by its absolute stillness. Rukia could be calm, but there was always the knowledge of leashed tension under her skin, of muscle ready to strike. With this shop window dummy, it was simple immobility, simple lifelessness.

He ran his hand through his hair and waited for their expert to do something useful.

"It is like this," Ise said, kneeling next to the gigai. "After having been used for a while as a temporary body, a gigai builds up a degree of spiritual linkage to the shinigami in question. If we are particularly lucky, we may be able to induce parasympathetic locational reaction --"

"She means we may be able to get it to walk to where she is," Renji muttered to Ichigo behind his hand.

"-- or just promote a resonance, which is why I asked you to get the maps." Ise didn't look at Renji. "However, I cannot be certain. I cannot understand why Urahara Kisuke failed to try this reaction himself."

Renji stared at a spot a couple of inches above her head. "We didn't ask him."

"Yeah," Ichigo agreed.

"He's a slippery bastard."

"Uh-huh," Ichigo agreed. "Does things with gigai."

Ise closed her eyes for a moment in what seemed to be a habitual gesture, then opened them again. "Very well." She adjusted her glasses. "Stay back. This may take a little while to activate."

She began to mutter and gesture over the gigai. Renji pulled Ichigo over to the window, where Ikkaku and Yumichika were loitering. Somehow they managed to suggest thuggery and back alleys simply by standing there in a suggestive way.

"So," Ikkaku started. "Any ideas?"

"Yes," Yumichika put in before Ichigo could even ask what the ideas were supposed to be about. "You must know the trouble spots by now. Where should we start?"

Ichigo rubbed at his forehead. He had a bad feeling about this. "You mean, to grab Hollows and question them?"

"Told you he'd catch on fast," Ikkaku said approvingly to Renji, then turned back to Ichigo. "Yup. I mean, sure, this may be some use, but there's nothing like grabbing a Hollow by the throat and just plain _pulping_ the truth out of the little fucker . . ."

Ichigo's headache was getting worse. "Um . . ." Though now he came to think of it, the whole _beat Hollows up with extreme prejudice_ idea was more and more appealing. "It wouldn't work," he said regretfully. "They'd see us all coming and run away."

"So we use bait," Renji said cheerfully.

"What about that pretty Orihime-san?" Yumichika offered. "With the lovely flowing hair and the --"

"Not her," Ichigo growled. "We keep her out of this."

"Hey, just because she's a woman doesn't mean she can't fight," Ikkaku put in. "Look at Yachiru-fukutaichou . . ."

Ichigo twitched at the reminder of the small pink hurricane. Opponents were not supposed to sit on his sword and complain about his style. "Yes, well, look. Yachiru's not Inoue. Inoue does healing. We go to her if we need healing. But I'm not going to put her on the front lines as bait. What about . . ." Inspiration struck mid-headscratch. "Ishida. You know, the Quincy."

There was a thoughtful pause.

"Yeah," Renji said. "He'd do."

"We can tell him we'll be there to look after him," Ikkaku nodded. "That'll stop him panicking."

"Profoundly unattractive," Yumichika sniffed, "but I suppose Hollows have no discrimination."

Ichigo glanced out of the window. Mid-afternoon. That gave him a couple of hours till Ishida actually got here and he had to tell the Quincy about it. "Right," he agreed cheerfully.

Ise's chanting rose and fell in the background, monotone and depressing.

"How long does that sh-- stuff normally take?" Ikkaku asked Renji, with a surreptitious thumb over the shoulder.

"How the fuck should I know?" Renji answered. "A while."

"Perhaps we should order room service," Yumichika suggested, with a little too much innocence. "I've heard that when you do that you get to choose from a wide variety of delicacies and services . . ."

"You hear that in Soul Society?" Ichigo interrupted.

"No. In this brochure." Yumichika displayed a hotel leaflet. "Look, they've even got alcohol --"

"Gentlemen," Ise's voice broke in. "I'm getting a reaction."

The four of them turned to look at her. She had her hands directly above Rukia's face. Energy was crackling from them down into the gigai's eyes. The body was beginning to spasm slowly, hands clenching and unclenching, breath coming faster, bare feet twitching.

"Great," Ichigo said, deliberately unimpressed. "So what does it do now?"

"Well." Ise flexed her fingers. The body wriggled again. "The evidence suggests that the spirit which last animated this gigai is still in existence. I have been able to set up an associational chain. The next step is to link it to last night, then if you like, 'wind it forward' to synchronise the two . . ."

A thin red line marked itself down the gigai's neck, as if traced by an invisible pencil.

"Excellent," Ise said, with far too much enthusiasm. "You said there was blood, Abarai-fukutaichou?"

"Yeah," Renji said through gritted teeth. Ichigo got the impression he wasn't enjoying this any more than Ichigo himself was. "Look, can you get it any faster?"

"I -- oh dear." The slit opened wider, and blood began pooling on the floor under the gigai's neck, seeping out and into her clothing. Another cut opened on the wrist, again bleeding far too fast, as if the blood was being sucked out of the body.

Ise rose to her feet and stepped delicately to one side in order to avoid the spreading pool of blood, her sandals clicking on the floor. She kept her hands precisely in position above the gigai's face.

"What the fuck's happening?" Ichigo demanded.

"Precise linkage," Ise said distractedly. "Could someone get a towel? Thank you. We are seeing roughly what happened to Kuchiki-san herself at this point. Wounds, blood loss. Probable unconsciousness."

The blood slowed and stopped flowing. The gigai lay there, more like a corpse than ever.

"So," Renji said, "she gets cut, she bleeds, she -- Ise-fukutaichou, is it _supposed_ to be doing that?"

Ise was frowning. The energy between her hands and the body was oscillating backwards and forwards, reminding Ichigo of nothing so much as one of those plasma lamp ball things. "I'm getting interference. Someone set up a cutout. Wards."

With one last crackle, the flow of energy dissipated and vanished.

Ise shook her hands as though they were dripping with water, then folded her arms with a frown. "How very irritating. I do apologise, Abarai-fukutaichou."

"You lost it?" Renji asked.

"I did. Some sort of block and ward on the linkage." She turned to give Ichigo and Renji a thin half-smile. "Look on this as promising, gentlemen. There would be no need to do this for a _dead_ captive. Kuchiki-san must be alive."

Ichigo let out his breath in a long sigh. Okay. So she was alive. He could deal with that. He would find her and he would so kick her scrawny little ass, but she was alive. Things were improving.

"Oi," Ikkaku put in. "Do we have to do something about that?"

They looked at the exsanguinated gigai, lying there and bleeding all over the floor.

"Leave it," Ichigo said reluctantly. "It's not like we can move it like that. Renji, you'd better go stay with Urahara tonight --"

"Hey! I'm not staying with that bastard!"

"Well, you can't stay with me!"

"Rukia did --"

"You wouldn't fit in my closet --"

Ise coughed. "Madarame-san, would you mind?"

"Delighted, madam," Ikkaku said, and banged their heads together. "Oi! The vice-captain wants a word!"

Renji and Ichigo rubbed their heads and turned to look at Ise Nanao.

"I have a credit card," she said, flashing it briefly. "We will all book rooms in another hotel. We will be busy tonight in any case. Kurosaki-san, what is the current protocol for leaving a room with a bleeding corpse in it without arousing suspicion?"

Ichigo tried to remember the relevant television programs. "Leave here quietly a few at a time and don't arouse suspicion."

"Very well." Her glasses flashed in the late afternoon light. "Let us be on our way."

* * *

Renji snagged Ise Nanao's arm as the two of them followed the others out of the room. "A word in your ear," he muttered.

She turned to him and raised a calm eyebrow. "Yes, Abarai-fukutaichou?"

_Trust the bitch to make it formal and remind him of their ranks._ "What you said, about her being alive --"

"Is quite possible," she cut through his words. "We both know that you have survived worse, for one."

"Yeah, but . . ." But Rukia was smaller than him. But Rukia was weaker than him. But there had been so much blood. "But how can you be sure?"

"I am not." She adjusted her glasses with one hand. "But for the moment, I am going to assume she is alive and needs to be found as soon as possible. Besides --" She cast a glance down the corridor at the Kurosaki brat and the men from Eleventh. "How do you think the boy would react if he thought she was dead?"

"Badly," Renji said under his breath.

"So we will assume that she is alive." She freed her sleeve from Renji's grasp, and patted the back of his hand. "She is neither helpless nor incompetent. You should know that."

"You like her too," Renji said, surprised.

"Only someone as blind as yourself," Ise Nanao said over her shoulder as she swept past him, "would have failed to notice that. Or as blind as her. Really."

"Bitch," Renji muttered as he trailed her down the corridor, but more cheerfully.

* * *

Night spread its wings over the Kuchiki household. The moon shone through the windows and paled the cherry blossoms, and glowed in the depths of the lake like a huge pearl. No wind troubled the waters and distorted the image.

It had taken Byakuya a while to sleep. He had finished his work, as always, and he had not let his concern for his sister touch that work or affect his conduct. It was not simply a case of it being unseemly to do so; it would be a betrayal of his function in Soul Society.

He would simply have to trust Renji. Easier, these days, than it used to be.

He lay in his bed and tried to sleep. The night air was cool against his skin. He thought of sword practice, and kidou, and his zanpakutou; he thought of the other Captains; he lay there wakeful, and thought of Hisana.

He remembered the sound of her feet on the floor, a soft whisper of bare feet and trailing robes. She would always dress perfectly for the season, in combinations of colours that suited the flowers and the weather; he had liked her best in green and pink and white, as fragile and tentative as the spring.

He would rise from his morning work and throw open the window to let the sunlight in, and turn to see her standing there in the shadows by the door, raising her eyes to look at him. Her hair would be tied back, its lush darkness restrained from her face, and he would walk over to her and place his palms against her cheeks, and she would . . .

. . . Byakuya dreamed, and walked down the corridors of the Kuchiki mansion in that dream, padding softly, barefoot, the hilt of his zanpakutou near his hand. He had been told (but he could not remember by who) that there was an enemy in his household, and he had to kill them, it was required of him, it was necessary.

Outside the nightingales sang; sorrow, sorrow, sorrow.

He turned the corner and saw Hisana standing there, her long robes drawn round her, hair loosed to hide her face.

"I thought you had gone," he said.

"How could Hisana leave when her lord needs her?" she answered, and moved to stand against him, pressing her body against his, her head against his chest.

He took her in his arms. He had no need of a sword to hold her.

Her fingers were light and cold as snowflakes as she parted the folds of his scarf.

* * *

It was early evening by the time that Ishida and Chad caught up with Kurosaki and his shinigami associates. They'd managed to lose Orihime and Tatsuki due to some vigorous cross-town dodging and a bit of hiding. Ishida didn't like being dishonest to Orihime (and really, really didn't want to be caught on Tatsuki's bad side) but he didn't want to get her involved in the current goings-on any more than Kurosaki did. In the end, they found them at the Kurosaki Clinic.

"You did know there are _police_ hanging around that hotel?" Ishida said as he shut the door behind himself and Chad. Apparently Kurosaki Isshin had taken his two daughters out for a meal or something. Good. Less ears around to hear stuff they shouldn't.

"Oh." Kurosaki looked guilty. As he should. "We would have called you, but I didn't have your phone number . . ."

Chad coughed.

"And I kinda forgot," Kurosaki added. "But you didn't get caught so that's okay and we've got this idea."

"Idea?" Ishida asked.

"Yeah," the bald thug put in. "We figure that the easiest way to catch some Hollows is to use bait."

"Ah." Ishida colored. "I don't have any Hollow bait left from that time, but --"

"No, no, not that sort of bait. Bait bait," Abarai interrupted. "See, if you go wandering round and then fire up one of your Quincy arrows if you see anything, the rest of us can come in and grab it and then ask it some questions."

_And what do I say now._ He took off his glasses, and swiped at them with a handkerchief, trying to think. _I don't have any power left, I don't have any Quincy arrows, I don't have anything . . ._

"That's not going to work," the one with feathers said. "They'd get away before we reached them."

"If I might ask exactly what's going on?" Ishida demanded. It'd give him another moment to think. "About Kuchiki-san?"

"Missing, wounded, believed alive," the female vice-captain put in crisply. (He'd thought from the moment he saw her glasses that she might be more intelligent than the rest.) "We need to find Hollows to question them. Unfortunately, if we go as a group, we are likely to panic them and scare them away. We need a single person to act as bait."

"I'll go," Chad rumbled.

Everyone turned to look at him.

"Think about it," he pointed out. "I can defend myself. Uryuu's arrows would kill the Hollow before you could question it. I'll just pummel it a bit while the rest of you turn up."

Ichigo ran his hand through his hair. "Yes, but, why would they attack _you_? You look tough. Defensive. Whatever."

"Kurosaki!" Ishida hissed. "Are you suggesting that I --"

"Kinda makes sense," Abarai cut him off loudly. "Thanks, Yasutora. We appreciate it. Quincy, we figure the rest of us should split into pairs, act as a perimeter. Then when whatever it is attacks Yasutora, we close in on them."

"Right," Ishida said, with misgivings. "Um, what about Inoue-san?"

Ichigo gave him a look. "What about her."

Ishida nodded. "Yes, that's what I thought."

* * *

Rangiku leaned on the windowsill, a cup of wine in her hand. The evening wind played with her hair. The moon hung huge and pale above Seireitai, like a ghost of itself -- could the moon be the ghost of a moon, the ghost be a ghost of itself? -- she'd clearly had too much wine. Or maybe not enough yet.

Her body ached, in a quiet way. She'd beaten it into submission during the day, training drill after training drill, workload after workload, to the point that her captain asked meaningfully if she was quite sure she hadn't been replaced by a evil duplicate of herself. All of it to try to silence her mind, to quieten the echoes at the back of her heart of Gin's voice whispering, _I wish you could have held onto me a little longer . . ._ And none of it worked.

None of it. If he were here she'd kill him. But since he wasn't, all she could do was dream of him.

She could dream that he was here now, sitting on the windowsill, as pale as the moon itself, all in white, taking the cup from her hand to sip from it, his fingers cold as they brushed hers.

"Oi, Rangiku-chan," he would whisper, "aren't ya gonna ask me in?"

"Come in," she said (would say?) and her heart lurched as he stepped into her room and took her in his arms.

* * *

Chad wandered down the street, shoulders braced against the night air. Truth be told, he was rather enjoying this. If he was about to be jumped on by screaming Hollows, well, it put the moral burden firmly on _their_ shoulders when he would pound them into the pavement. And better he be out here at risk than Inoue, or Kurosaki -- not that Kurosaki would manage to convince anyone that he was a victim, even if he was to walk around the streets stark naked with both hands tied behind his back.

He had thought about putting on his headphones and some music to look even more harmless, but he had decided reluctantly that it might distract him at a bad moment.

"Oi. You." The air shivered behind him with a thump of high-level reiatsu as _something _arrived.

He turned. Raised his eyebrows. There were two of them. One was vaguely punk-looking, with ruffled blue hair and an arrogant posture. The other was larger, taller even than Chad himself, and with bulk to match it. Both of them were wearing white and had odd bits of bone stuck to their heads. Both of them were Hollows.

"Can I help you?" he enquired politely. After all, it might be pure coincidence.

"You're supper," the blue-haired one sneered.

Not coincidence.

Also, no immediate shinigami backup.

Why, Chad reflected as he called up his arm-plating, did it always happen this way.

* * *

Tatsuki got up and stretched. "It's too late," she said. "Kurosaki's not going to phone. We'll have to speak to him tomorrow." She invested the phrase "speak to him" with the sort of intonation that others would have associated with "put his face through a window" or "leave a horse's head in his bed".

"We will," Orihime agreed, trying to force cheerfulness into her voice, and trying not to feel too betrayed. Did Ichigo really think that little of her? Was she that useless? Even Chad and Ishida hadn't said anything . . .

The doorbell rang.

"I'll get it," Tatsuki said.


	4. Chapter Four

**REQUIEM**

**CHAPTER FOUR**

Ichigo and Renji stared at the man -- or Hollow -- facing them.

"I thought Hollows didn't look human," Ichigo said out of the corner of his mouth.

"So it's a weird one," Renji replied. "Oi!" he addressed the tall man with the half-mask and the long braid. "You seen Kuchiki Rukia? She's this shinigami, about so high --"

The Hollow gave a little half-laugh, and flicked a pointed tongue across his thin lips. "And if I have?"

"Well, see." Renji leaned forward, resting Zabimaru on the ground. "Call it the difference between you getting purified right now, and us kicking the shit out of you before we purify you and send you on."

The Hollow shook his head. "That's assuming you're going to be purifying me in the first place." He tilted his head, eyeing Renji thoughtfully.

"Yeah?" Renji raised his eyebrows. "Getting a good look, huh?"

"You have . . . a _nice_ neck," the Hollow said thoughtfully. "You both do. But I think I prefer the tattooed look."

Ichigo took a step back. "You can fight the pervert, man," he informed Renji.

"Hey." Renji considered stepping back himself. "Ah well. This won't take long."

"A moment." The Hollow raised a finger politely. "You are the shinigami Abarai Renji, correct? Vice-Captain of Sixth Division of the Gotei 13? Wielder of the zanpakutou Zabimaru?"

Ichigo twitched. "He's been stalking you."

"Well, yeah," Renji admitted. "What's it to you?"

"In that case, your blood will be especially piquant. Please excuse me. I want to make sure I can savour this." He drew his blade. "Snip, Tijereta!"

Renji blinked in surprise as the Hollow's reiatsu level jumped. Plus the claws he was growing. And the way his long braid was developing spikes or something that looked like it.

"I thought Hollows didn't have zanpakutou," Ichigo muttered.

Renji sighed. "We knew we had weird Hollows, right? So this is a _very_ weird one --"

The blast of force blew him through the wall.

* * *

Ikkaku and Yumichika had cornered the Hollow in a dark alley. This was standard procedure. There was something about back alleys which made any Eleventh Division member comfortable; they were made for brawls, smoking, and teaching arrogant punks a lesson.

Strangely, the Hollow hadn't got the point. He was eyeing them both in a way that reminded Ikkaku of Yumichika on a looking-for-a-fight-and-just-say-one-thing-about-my-eyebrow day. He was also what Ikkaku could only define as _pretty_. Floppy white hair and a hip-tilting attitude and a half-mask of bone like a broken helmet stuck on his head.

"You got a problem?" Ikkaku demanded.

The Hollow smiled. "No, brother. Not at all. Just . . . considering my prey for the night."

"He's deluded," Yumichika informed Ikkaku. "A pity. I thought we had finally discovered a Hollow who it would be a positive pleasure to fight . . . in an aesthetic sense, that is," he added hastily.

"Oh." The Hollow took a pace forward. "And I was just thinking how great the contrast was between the two of you. One, all bald thug --"

"_Not_ bald," Ikkaku said from between his teeth.

"-- and the other . . . well, someone who clearly understands the importance of beauty."

Yumichika smiled prettily.

"Look," Ikkaku said before this could degenerate any further, "we're looking for this other shinigami, right? Titchy little thing. Kuchiki Rukia." In the distance he could hear crashing noises and feel waves of reiatsu. Well, good. The others were clearly having fun too. "So tell us if you don't know anything about her and we can get on with stuff . . ."

"It's your friend I want to fight," the Hollow murmured, taking another step forward. "Now why don't you go and play somewhere else while we get busy, brother?"

Yumichika grabbed Ikkaku's wrist as Ikkaku grabbed for his zanpakutou hilt. "Hey! Didn't you hear that? He's mine! Manners!"

"He insulted me first," Ikkaku snarled.

"Yes, well, you can beat him_ if_ he beats me."

Ikkaku growled something.

"Why don't you go and check on the others?" Yumichika suggested brightly. "I want to enjoy this."

* * *

Tatsuki opened the door. "Hello," she began, then looked down.

There was a stranger sitting on the front door mat. A child. In white robes. A cute blond child. With a chunk of bone stuck to his head, and a hole in the middle of his chest.

"Excuse me," she said, the polite words coming out on reflex, and shut the door hastily.

"What is it?" Orihime called.

"There's this. Um. Thing on the doorstep," Tatsuki improvised.

_the thing that sat on top of the school and threw crystals like knives that I still dream about and I dream about you protecting me and then you go away from me and it gets dark and_

"What sort of thing?" Orihime asked, in such a totally Orihime tone of cheerful curiosity that it somehow drove the nightmare back.

"It looks like a kid but it has this hole in its chest." _And why am I not thinking it's a kid with a fake hole in his chest?_ "It's just sitting there."

Orihime came running to join her. "Can I look?"

"Orihime, it's a _thing _with a _hole in its chest_ on the _doorstep_."

"Yes, but it's not trying to break in or anything, is it?"

Tatsuki paused. "Well. No."

"I'll be careful," Orihime said reassuringly, and opened the door.

The child looked up and smiled, showing fangs.

Tatsuki dragged Orihime back and slammed the door again. "It's a vampire!"

"No, it's a Hollow," Orihime said helpfully. "You can tell because it's got a big hole in its chest."

Tatsuki frowned. "What's a Hollow when it's at home?"

"It's this hungry ghost that eats other ghosts and some of them aren't really that bad but others are evil."

"Where did you find out about them?"

"Um." Orihime swallowed. "I'll tell you later. It's weird, though. Normally they'd try and break in. Maybe it's a messenger."

"Well, wouldn't it say something, then?"

"True. What do you think?"

Tatsuki tried to remember her shoujo horror manga. "Vampires can't come in unless they're invited. Maybe that's it."

"So we shouldn't invite it in?"

"No we _shouldn't_."

Orihime opened the door again. The child was still sitting there, staring up at them. "Can you understand me?" she asked.

The child's gaze drifted from her to the moths that fluttered around the porch light.

"Hello?" she tried again.

The child blurred into sudden motion, snatching a couple of the moths out of the air by their wings, then settling back down again to watch them with a curiously fascinated air.

Tatsuki put a hand on Orihime's shoulder. "Don't go outside."

The moths twitched frantically in the child's grip, throwing themselves from side to side as they tried to fly away.

"I won't, but --" Orihime broke off as the child stuffed the moths into his mouth, biting down on them. Moth-wing dust smeared his lips and fingers as he looked up at the two girls again, head cocked with the same fascination as he'd shown towards the insects.

Tatsuki dragged Orihime in again and slammed the door.

* * *

"He's mine," the bulky one stated as he stepped forwards.

"Feel free," the blue-haired one shrugged. "I'll wait for some more to turn up."

"Can I ask who you are?" Chad asked politely.

The bulky one put his hands on his hips. "I'm Yammi. He's Grimmjow Jagger Jack. We're Arrancar. And you're --"

"Arrancar?" Chad interrupted. "I thought you were Hollows."

Yammi sighed. "Arrancar are better than Hollows. No mask. See?" He pointed at the length of bone that clung to the underside of his jaw. "Now. We're Arrancar. You're trash."

Chad balled energy into his fist and struck. The wave of force washed around Yammi and shattered the wall on either side behind him.

Yammi frowned at him. "Yeah. Trash."

Chad didn't bother answering that. He focused, took three steps forward, and struck again.

This time, the impact jolted Yammi half a step back. The air around him hissed and smoked.

"All right," he conceded. "My turn."

His blow sent Chad backwards into the wall.

* * *

Ise Nanao had been stalking the area at street level, in deference to her companion's abilities (or rather, lack of same, and lack of flash step). She'd been considering what to do with him if a fight broke out. Certainly someone who could take down Kurotsuchi-taichou was an asset; however, that had been in Soul Society, and she understood that the Quincy's powers were magnified by the spiritrons there. He probably wouldn't be quite so impressive here in the world of the living.

He'd tried to start a conversation once or twice, but then dropped back mid-sentence. Maybe he was just too shy to ask for details about Soul Society.

Abruptly, reiatsu blossomed across the town in half a dozen places, cold and sharp, with all the aftertaste of Hollow to it. The nearest one was just a couple of streets away. With a quick nod to the Quincy, she blurred forward to see what was going on there.

The Hollow loitering at the street corner wasn't like any that she had seen before. It looked effectively human, somewhat androgynous, with the only trace of a mask being a fragment of bone clinging to the side of its head; there was no visible hole, but in every sense its reiatsu declared it a Hollow, and a powerful one. Its white robe was long-sleeved and loose; portions of the upper half were cut out to bare a scrawny torso. It was wearing a sword. That in itself was interesting.

It looked across at her. "I'm assuming you're a shinigami?" it inquired.

She gave it one brief nod, hand already crooked and ready to summon power. "I am. You are?"

"My name is Luppi." It giggled. "I'm one of Aizen-sama's Arrancar. I hadn't expected to find prey this fast." Its gaze flicked to the Quincy, as he arrived behind her, puffing and gasping for breath. "And the Quincy, too! I will feed well tonight."

Nanao raised an eyebrow. "You don't feel . . . outnumbered?"

Luppi tilted its head to regard her in an uncomfortably voracious way. It wasn't the sort of appreciative look her Captain gave her. It was the sort of look that considered her and found her tastily edible. "I think I'll manage." It raised a hand, and sent a wave of force rolling in their direction.

Nanao easily sidestepped it, moving round and up, but turned to see that the Quincy hadn't managed to avoid it as neatly as she had. He'd been clipped by the edge of the blast, not downed but certainly slowed, and he wasn't showing any signs of preparing to return fire as she'd anticipated.

She threw a couple of quick blasts of flame kidou to distract the Arrancar, circling back round to the Quincy again. "Are you all right?" she hissed. "Pull yourself together!"

"I -- ah, Ise-fukutaichou . . ." The Quincy glanced nervously at the Arrancar, who'd shrugged the kidou away and was now walking towards them, drawing its sword. "There's something I should perhaps have told you --"

"Later." This really wasn't the moment. She grabbed him by the neck of his jacket, her reflexes honed by so many times with her Captain, and physically dragged him back up the street as she retreated fifty yards. Get out of immediate danger, then reassess the situation; standard protocol.

"Mmm, don't you want to stay and play?" Luppi asked. It smiled again, and fangs flashed.

"It's a vampire!" the Quincy gasped.

"A what?" Nanao demanded. The only vampires _she'd_ ever heard of were the sort that turned up in trashy horror literature with women falling out of their bodices on the cover.

"They drink people's blood!"

"We do," Luppi agreed amiably. "While they're still alive. And squirming."

Nanao's eyes narrowed. "Kuchiki Rukia," she said, not a question, but a statement.

"Oh yes." Luppi nodded. "Not that _I_ got her, but -- anyhow, you look like being the awkward type. Strangle, Trepadora!"

His sword _moved_, undulating in a way that was uncomfortable to watch, and seemed to run back up his arm like water, merging with his body. A bone cage formed round his back and head like helmet and armour, and tentacles came drifting out of it like long threads of silk, undulating pallidly.

Nanao was not looking forward to describing this to Kyouraku-taichou.

* * *

Moonlight lay slickly on the laboratory tables, turning them into slabs of marble. The night shift was elsewhere in Twelfth Division, and Nemu was working alone on one of her father's latest projects.

Something stirred in the air behind her. She turned to see Tousen Kaname standing there. He had changed his previous clothing for plain white robes that left his arms free, as stark and simple as a lab coat.

"I will sound the alarm," she said flatly. "Surrender and matters will be over more quickly."

"Kurotsuchi Nemu." He didn't smile. He never had smiled, she remembered. "I have a proposal to make."

"I will not betray my father."

"This would assist your father."

The words caught her attention. And he was making no immediate attacks, after all. "Continue," she requested.

"I can give your father . . . something new to study. It will take several days to incubate, but it will be something that he has not seen before. Something from Urahara Kisuke's research. Are you interested?"

Nemu did not know what the words _Well done_ sounded like in her father's voice, but sometimes he said _Adequate_, and that simple statement had been enough to warm her for days. "What would this involve?" she asked cautiously.

"A little of your blood," Tousen said.

She could not see his eyes.

It seemed a small enough thing.

"Very well," she said, and did not flinch when he came towards her, when he took her wrist between his own hands and raised it to his mouth.

It did not even hurt. Her father's needles hurt worse. It was calming, it was like sinking into darkness, a kind of sleep that held her as he eased her down to the ground, one arm around her shoulders.

"If you tell your father about this before it is done, he might stop you," Tousen whispered. "He wouldn't understand."

And perhaps he wouldn't. Nemu's thoughts flickered like shadowy butterflies, unable to settle.

"You can tell him soon," the voice in the darkness promised her. "Very soon. He'll be so glad."

Yes. Mayuri-sama would be glad. He would . . .

"Hush," Tousen said, and Nemu slept.

* * *

Renji picked himself out of the pile of bricks. "All right," he stated with what he considered to be firm, calm maturity and decisiveness, "you're going down."

"You may try," the weird Hollow answered. "You will fail."

"Hey," Ichigo said, "that's weird. Your ponytail's got a thingy on the end."

Renji frowned. Antics of this weird Hollow aside, he could smell reiatsu bursts going off all across the town. "Stop pointing out the obvious, Kurosaki," he said, not taking his eyes off the Hollow. "I can handle this one. Use your damn nose. There's others of them around. You need to go find Chad."

"Chad can look after himself," Ichigo complained, but he was already moving. "Don't get killed!" he yelled over his shoulder.

"Killing will be the last of it," the Hollow commented, with a smile that had long pointed teeth in it.

"Yeah, so? I've got a zanpakutou too. Howl, Zabimaru!" Renji commanded. He wasn't going to waste his time worrying about how a Hollow had a zanpakutou. He'd let someone else handle that after the fight was over.

The Hollow scuttled and jumped like an insect, the white skirts of its robe trailing behind it, and Renji was reminded uncomfortably of the Rukongai days and earwigs.

Still, he knew what to do with earwigs. You swatted them. "Hold still," he snarled, taking out several chunks of wall as he tried to get a blow in on the creature.

The thing backed away, just enough for him to get a good swing at it, then came in at surprising speed, almost Captain-level, and jumped at him. Renji went stumbling back, landing on his rear, and the Hollow dug its claws into his shoulders and forced him down. The pointed sting on the end of its ponytail lashed down, burying itself in the ground just next to his head.

"Hold still," it hissed.

Without a moment's thought Renji dropped the hilt of Zabimaru, braced the heel of his right hand against the palm of his left hand, and smashed his elbow hard into the Hollow's face.

It screamed, lurching back, blood running from its broken nose, and Renji grabbed Zabimaru again. The zanpakutou had withdrawn into its shorter form as it lay on the ground, and it was just the right length for him to bring it in a cut round and up, slamming into the creature's body, knocking it back.

The next blow finished it off.

Renji stood there panting. The Hollow's claws had shredded the shoulders of his robes as well as gouging into his shoulders, and the night air was surprisingly cold on his bare skin.

* * *

Yumichika and the Hollow paused, mid-step, on a rooftop. They considered each other.

"Normally," Yumichika said gravely, "I would have liked to have drawn this out for as long as possible. But under the current circumstances, I hope you'll understand that I need to finish this quickly."

The pale-haired Hollow inclined his head. "I quite appreciate, brother. I hope that you will retain this attitude later."

Yumichika raised a feathered brow. "Later?"

The Hollow smiled. "Later."

Yumichika raised Fujikujaku. "Any last words?" he enquired.

"Only these. Skewer, Del Toro!"

"Well," Yumichika commented, watching the Hollow swell and grow horns, "I have to say that you don't look half as pretty now."

"You fail to appreciate the beauty that lies in raw power," the Hollow growled. He was like nothing so much as a full-grown bull now -- no, a bull several times its normal size.

"You should see my Captain --" Yumichika had to break off to dodge as the Hollow charged at him. "Now there's a rampant icon of -- a true image of -- why are you wasting so much time putting off the inevitable?" he demanded, pausing to catch his breath.

"I was about to ask you the same," the Hollow snarled. "Surrender!"

"No."

The Hollow charged again, and Yumichika realised that he was definitely going to have to Take Steps. How utterly infuriating. He had been hoping to do this purely physically, and this would make the second time in _weeks_ that he'd had to draw on Fujikujaku's power like this, and the zanpakutou would no doubt make sarcastic comments about it in his sleep . . .

As the Hollow reared above him in a great crashing wave of motion, Yumichika called out to his zanpakutou, and felt it answer. The air around him wove itself into lines of power that latched onto the Hollow, and he breathed in, and power rolled through him like cold wine, like ice and lightning and the wind on bones.

"What -- what . . ." the Hollow babbled as it fell forward on hands and knees, restored to human form again. He looked up at Yumichika's zanpakutou with hungry eyes, and his fangs showed again as he smiled. "You _are_ our brother. I didn't realise that they'd already . . . quick, help me up, we can share the others --"

"I don't share," Yumichika said, and his next blow took the creature's head off.

He would have admitted, if Ikkaku had been around, that he was perhaps a little disturbed.

* * *

"I'll pin him down while you shoot him," Nanao said over her shoulder to the Quincy as she watched Luppi approach. "On my mark --"

"I can't!" the Quincy gasped. "I don't have my powers!"

"You what?" Nanao demanded in shock.

"You what?" Luppi echoed, his tentacles floating round him like seaweed in water. "How disappointing."

Nanao could think of stronger words for it. "Stay back, then!" she snapped at the Quincy, and threw a quick Blue Fireball at the Hollow, not bothering with the full incantation, to see how he'd take it.

He shrugged it off, and his tentacles reached for her as he came swooping forward.

This was inconvenient. He was too fast for her to take the time to recite a full incantation, he had the advantage of reach, and she had a non-combatant to protect. She flicked a glance from right to left as she glided backwards. Residential area. No convenient large buildings to drop on top of him. No large trees to break down for cover. Power lines casting long black shadows across the road.

Power lines. She ducked one of the tentacles as it grabbed for her, caught the Quincy under the arms, and ran smoothly up the nearest pole, coming to a pause at the top. The Quincy groaned and clung to her, breath coming fast.

"What, have I treed the little rabbit already?" Luppi put his hands on his hips through the holes in his outfit, looking up at her with an ugly leer in his eyes. "Or should I call you a squirrel?"

"You can call me all you like," Nanao snapped down at him, "but it is quite beyond your power to catch me. Creature."

Luppi's tentacles lashed out at the pole, cracking into it and slicing through the wood. It began to lean slowly over, and Nanao ran along the slanting power line to the next pole along, pausing again and waiting for the Hollow to catch up.

He was after her within a few seconds, of course, and his tentacles hammered into the pole under her, bringing it down to match the first one. Power lines wrenched loose, thrashing across the pavement with all the weight of gravity behind them, and Luppi had to jump back from them, his eyes wide with surprise.

_Now._ Nanao came down with a rush, tossing the Quincy to one side once she was close enough to the ground that he'd land safely, and caught two of the loose power lines in her hands. They were as thick around as her Captain's wrists, great heavy things -- but not beyond her power to lift and raise, oh no. She was moving before Luppi could react, circling him in a loose spin that tangled the power lines together with his tentacles, then flowing back again out of his reach.

Luppi was already squirming to throw the power lines off, flexing his tentacles to toss them away, as she grabbed the other ends of the cables and invoked the White Lightning kidou. A weak kidou, an easily evaded kidou, but it went straight into him and threw him to the ground and left him gasping there, running through the power lines and right into him.

She dropped the power lines and walked up to him. "Information," she said, power gathering around her right hand.

"Go to hell," he spat at her.

"Very well." She dropped to one knee beside him and slammed her right hand down into his face, a full strike with a hammer of fire behind it that charred him to ash and set his spirit free.

* * *

Chad was reluctantly coming to the conclusion that the big one called Yammi was stronger than him and faster than him. Not a better fighter, no -- his guard had openings in it -- but strong enough to shrug off Chad's blows when they _did_ get through.

The significant lack of backup wasn't helping matters. Chad could feel reiatsu going off elsewhere in the town. He realised that his friends must be busy. This wasn't how they'd planned the evening to go.

It hit him like a fist between the eyes. Rather than decoying out the enemy, _they'd_ been split up and decoyed. The anger from that realisation put a force into his next punch which staggered Yammi.

"He's got teeth," the other one, Grimmjow, commented. "But we're wasting time here. I want to get one for myself."

Yammi snorted. "I just don't want to damage him too bad."

"Too badly for what?" Chad asked.

"Eh." Yammi's small eyes gleamed. "You'll see in just a minute."

Chad didn't like any of the potential answers that he could think of. Reluctantly, he decided that property damage was necessary. He'd been trying to avoid smashing too much stuff, here in the world of the living where people were real, but under the circumstances it was more dangerous to hold back. Summoning his full power, he feinted, then smashed Yammi straight in the chest.

Yammi went backwards through two walls, and came to a halt in a pile of bricks and cement.

A bolt of force came in from Chad's left, catching him before he could think to block, and knocked him spinning. His head was still buzzing as he dragged himself upright to hands and knees.

"Oi!" Yammi was protesting. "It's my fight!"

"Yeah, well," Grimmjow drawled, "I'm fucking bored. Finish him off now or I'll have him."

Yammi came out of the pile of trash and through the holes in the wall in a tremendous charge, shaking the ground underneath his feet with each step (or perhaps that was Chad's imagination; he was still swaying on his feet, trying to stay upright) and hit Chad like a high speed train, carrying him backwards down the street to slam into the wall. His hand tightened on Chad's throat, and Chad struggled to get air into his lungs.

"Now," Yammi breathed in Chad's ear, and his breath was cold, cold as gravedirt, "this is gonna be easier on you if you don't kick." His free hand closed on the collar of Chad's shirt, tearing it to bare his neck and shoulder.

_"Getsuga Tenshou!"_ a yell came from above. A crackling wave of red and black force hit Yammi, breaking his grip on Chad and knocking him back. He slid nearly ten yards before coming to a stop, char marks on his robe and hair smoking. He panted like an animal, fangs showing in his open mouth.

"Get the fuck away from him." Ichigo was standing between Yammi and Chad in the blink of an eye, shoulders tense with violence, his zanpakutou naked in his hands. "You hear me?"

"I'll take this one," Grimmjow said, stepping forward.

"Oi." Chad looked up. The shinigami Madarame Ikkaku was lounging on the roof. "You don't get to start this one without me. I've already been done out of one fight this evening."

Suddenly, ovals of something that Chad had no better description for than _dark light_ began to form around the two Hollows.

"Fuck you!" Grimmjow screamed, pounding at the strange halo around him. His hands seemed to dissolve into nothingness as they passed the area's circumference, as though they were passing into somewhere else. "Fuck you, Ulquiorra, we haven't finished yet! I want their blood!"

A third shadowy halo appeared between the two Hollows. The person standing in it had the same white robes and partial mask as Grimmjow and Yammi, but there was more of an edge to his presence. Darkness was smeared round his eyes like bloody tears. "We've lost half our forces already tonight. Aizen-sama's orders. We pull back."

Yammi snarled and made a gesture at Chad that was universal, despite nationality and vital status. _You and me next time, punk,_ it said.

Chad would have gestured back, but he didn't think that his grandfather would have approved. He merely pulled himself upright and straightened his torn shirt.

"You damn . . ." Grimmjow was still screaming obscenities as the Hollows vanished into nothingness.

Ichigo sheathed his zanpakutou. "Um. Sorry for interfering in your fight," he said to Chad.

"Don't worry about it," Chad reassured him. He rubbed at the side of his neck. "Was that Hollow trying to _bite_ me?"

"Sure looked like it." Ikkaku landed in the street and walked across to check. "Hey, there's even little scratches. Kurosaki here must have got him off just in time."

"Good."

"Are all the others okay?" Ichigo asked Ikkaku.

Ikkaku sighed, and tapped Ichigo on the forehead. "Deaf as a post, you are. Can't you hear it? They're all finished. The place is clear for the moment."

"Right." Ichigo folded his arms. "Then we need to talk, and I think things are bad enough that we're going to have to get Urahara in on this."

Chad nodded in agreement. The situation was that bad.

* * *

Ukitake met Kyouraku at the doors to the meeting chamber. Yamamoto-soutaichou had called another early morning meeting to discuss the current situation. Ukitake had to admit (not that he would have) that he wasn't quite sure what they could accomplish, but there was always the chance that there would be new information from the world of the living or from Covert Operations which would provide a new point of view on matters . . .

Kyouraku was yawning as he slowed his pace to match Ukitake's, and he was looking just a little pale. Not quite the shade of a full-blown previous evening of dissipation, Ukitake judged from experience, but perhaps a few too many cups of wine, and not being scolded off to bed at a reasonable hour.

"I'm growing old," Kyouraku said mournfully, guessing at Ukitake's thoughts. He patted his friend's shoulder. "But the moon was beautiful last night."

Ukitake raised an eyebrow.

Kyouraku grinned, and led the way into the meeting chamber.


	5. Chapter Five

**REQUIEM**

**CHAPTER FIVE**

The room seemed smaller than it was. Five angry arguing shinigami (not to mention one ex-Quincy, one mortal, one shopkeeper trying to go unnoticed, and a little girl carrying round a tray of teacups) did that to a room.

"Vampires!" Renji was yelling. He prodded at his own neck, then Chad's. "I tell you they were vampires!"

Chad made a neutral noise and removed Renji's hand. "Please, Abarai-san. It had almost scabbed over."

"Sorry," Renji said briefly, then returned to pointing a finger at Urahara. "This is your fucking fault."

Urahara opened his fan with a snap and hid his face with it. "Why are you blaming all this on _me_?"

Renji paused. An expression of existential doubt briefly passed across his face. "So, right, this isn't your fault?"

Urahara picked a cup of tea off Ururu's tray as she wandered by, and patted her on the head. "My dear and highly valued customer, may I point out that this is all Aizen's doing? Am I going round mutating Hollows into things that want to suck your blood?"

Ishida sat in the corner and stared at his cup of tea and very definitely didn't look at Ise Nanao. He was aware that he hadn't exactly shown himself to advantage during the whole fight with the vampire Hollow thing. But it had seemed like a good idea during the planning session to keep his mouth shut and hope he'd be able to do something useful, and he hadn't wanted to say anything, hadn't been able to make himself say anything . . .

"Let's just say it wouldn't surprise me if you did," Ichigo snarled at Urahara. "Given everything _else_."

"They weren't exactly much of a challenge, though," Ikkaku put in. "We took them all down fairly fast. Apart from the two who were ganging up on Yasutora here, they weren't that bad, right?"

"They had some form of shikai," Nanao said. "This is not known in Hollows. This has not happened before."

Ichigo blinked at her. "So they had shikai, so what? Isn't that something that, I dunno, maybe some Hollows can do? Like, well, like maybe some shinigami get Hollow masks or something?"

Everyone looked at him.

"Don't talk crap," Renji said. "That doesn't happen."

"Course not," Ikkaku agreed, and put his empty cup down on Ururu's tray. "Hey, kid, can you go find us some decent booze --"

"Just an example," Ichigo said hastily. "But is it really that weird?"

All the shinigami nodded. "It -- simply doesn't happen," Yumichika said.

Urahara was frowning. "Are you absolutely sure?"

Nanao held up her hand, and began folding down fingers. "Drew weapon, check. Invoked name of weapon, check. However, the weapon itself didn't change noticeably, but the Hollow's form did. Wait. They were calling themselves Arrancar. A new social stratification, perhaps?"

Ikkaku snorted. "Nah, probably just thought it sounded cooler than saying they were new and improved by that bastard Aizen." He elbowed Yumichika. "But since you were the one who got to fight that bastard, you lucky --"

"Language," Yumichika said primly. "In any case, Ise-fukutaichou is correct. That was what happened to the one I fought. Weapon, invocation, bodily transformation. And then a sudden and bloody death and purification, of course," he added modestly.

"Did you obtain any useful information from yours?" Nanao asked curiously. "Mine said he was 'one of Aizen-sama's Arrancar'. He knew enough about us to recognise Ishida-san." She glanced at Ishida for a moment, and he looked down at his teacup. "He also referred to Kuchiki Rukia."

"What did he say about her?" Renji demanded, half a second before Ichigo could.

Nanao's voice was very neutral. "He said that he had not been the one who 'got her'."

There was silence in the room for a long moment.

"More tea, Ururu," Urahara said, pushing the little girl towards the door. He turned back to the others. "The evidence suggests she is still alive, from what you have said. And this vampirism appears to be a state change or mutation. I don't know for certain, but I think that Orihime Inoue may be able to affect it -- if that _is_ the case, which we haven't proved as yet. By the way, where is Orihime-chan?"

"At home," Ichigo said, then frowned. "I hope."

* * *

"It's gone," Tatsuki said, peering through the peephole in the door.

"It could be hiding." Orihime folded her arms around herself.

"Don't worry," Tatsuki said encouragingly. "You've got your spirits. You can put up a barrier between it and us if you have to, right?"

Orihime had spent the last couple of hours giving Tatsuki a full explanation of everything that had been going on over the last few months. Everything now made sense to Tatsuki, and apart from the desire to kick Ichigo off the highest building in the school a few times, she was quite comfortable with it all. No problems. None at all.

"Yes, but . . ."

"But?"

"But Kurosaki and the others wanted to keep me out of it." Orihime wouldn't meet Tatsuki's eyes. "They must have known that I wouldn't be able to affect these things properly. Or they'd have . . ."

Tatsuki mentally added several storeys to the height of the building she was going to kick Kurosaki Ichigo off. "They're idiots," she said in a calm and reasonable way. "First, you said that everyone's saying that your powers are cool and unusual and they haven't seen anything like it before, so how would they know that it wouldn't work? Second, this thing went away when we shut the door. How on earth is that supposed to be so totally dangerous that you can't be let anywhere near it? And thirdly --"

"Thirdly?"

"Thirdly, I want to see them dare say such a thing to your face."

"Oh." Orihime blushed. "I think they're all too polite to do that."

Tatsuki smiled. "That's their problem."

* * *

"We need," Ise Nanao said firmly, "to establish what these Arrankar creatures are, and how much they resemble the traditional vampire. I saw very little in common with the Chinese _jiangshi_, for instance."

Ichigo looked blank till Renji whispered in his ear, "They're the ones that hop around and have long fingernails."

"Yes. Why should they need to suck blood, after all?" Yumichika said. "They're basically Hollows. While one could assume some sort of feeding in a spiritual sense, why _blood_? And why so close to the traditional legends?"

"Consider the blood-drinking as feeding directly on the essence in a spiritual sense," Urahara suggested. The brim of his hat hid his eyes. "Direct transference of strength. Short of a modality that would suck the cerebrospinal fluid or the aqueous humour -- I'll explain that one later for the not scientifically educated -- it's the most direct form of transfer that I can think of. Or straight cannibalism, of course. But I think that what we have here is an advanced form of Hollow that can directly feed off other spiritual entities, probably including other Hollows, and can also probably infect its victims in a spiritual sense, warping them to desire, no, _need_ the same food."

"You're awfully well-informed," Ichigo said dubiously.

"I'm just a scientist," Urahara said from behind his fan. "As well as being a humble shopkeeper, of course. Any logical thinker would come to the same conclusions."

"Where's Yoruichi-san?" Chad asked. "She might have seen something, if she's still around Karakura."

"She's . . . investigating." Urahara tapped his fan against the side of his nose meaningfully. "I'll talk to her when she gets back."

"But can they only come out at night?" Ichigo asked urgently.

"Mm. If this is what the traditional legends of vampires are based on, assuming that this mutation has occurred before, and without going into historical details I can tell you that it has, not that you heard it from me, and that includes you in particular, Ise-fukutaichou -- that is, there is a violent photoallergenic reaction associated with it."

"Urh?" Renji said.

"It means the sun burns them," Ichigo translated. He knew enough medical terminology from his father's work to recognise that one. "So they probably only do come out at night, or they'd have to stay indoors during the day and even then they'd have problems."

"They could wear heavy clothing," Ise Nanao suggested. "Hats. Heavy coats. Long robes. That'd handicap them in a fight, though . . ."

"So we're probably safe during the day," Renji concluded. "And if we get attacked by any of them, we drag them outside and rip their clothes off."

Ichigo turned to Urahara. "Right. And since _they_ won't be out during the day, you can do some weird shit and find out where they are or where they're coming from and help us get there so we can get Rukia back."

Renji was already shaking his head. "I have no problem with the weird shit, Kurosaki, but even if Urahara-san here can open a gate to Hueco Mundo -- which has to be where they're hiding -- it probably won't be daytime there. They won't be handicapped."

"So?" Ichigo demanded. He could feel the rage boiling in his stomach as the other shinigami exchanged meaningful glances.

Ikkaku was the one who said it. "Look. Kurosaki. Kid. I know you are unholy tough, and none of us here are cowards, but just charging right in there is going to get us all fucking killed."

"So we make a plan now." Ichigo slammed his empty cup down on Ururu's tray as she waited patiently. "We find her, we find Aizen and his crew and we . . ." He hesitated. Common sense was reminding him of what had happened last time he'd tried fighting Aizen. "We find her, we find Aizen and his crew, and we call in every single damn captain and vice-captain and whatever the hell you've got, they kick Aizen's butt, Orihime fixes Rukia, happy ending all round."

"A splendid summation," Urahara said approvingly. "However, if I might be permitted to offer a slightly different plan?"

"Yeah?" Renji said suspiciously.

"Kuchiki Rukia's circumstances are unlikely to change overnight. I believe I can put together something which will prevent any of those Arrancar escaping through the usual Negation ability. If we capture one or several tomorrow night, then we can interrogate them and find out what is actually going on. This will significantly improve our chances . . ."

"I'm not waiting another damn day --" Ichigo began, coming to his feet.

"You think this is any easier for us?" Renji snarled, rising in turn and grabbing for Ichigo's shoulder.

"Yes. Yes, I do." Ichigo slapped Renji's hand away. "Because if you weren't so concerned with --"

"And how do you know what I'm concerned with? What the fuck do you know about what I --"

"Will you two shut up!" Ishida shouted.

Both of them turned to look at him. Ichigo realised that he hadn't heard the Quincy say anything at all since they'd got back. And Ise Nanao was looking at Ishida sort of weirdly. Could she and he . . .

"There's something I have to say before we go any further," Ishida said in the sudden silence. "I don't have Quincy powers any longer. Right? I lost them in Soul Society. I did something I knew would destroy my powers because there was a fight that I had to win, and I did it, and now I've paid the price. And I may not have my powers any longer, but I'm still involved in all this. And I think that if Kuchiki Rukia were here, she'd call you two both idiots and say that you should be working on a plan rather than shouting at each other."

"You've lost your powers," Ichigo said numbly. He hadn't realised before.

"Yes. I've lost my powers." Ishida thrust his glasses up on the bridge of his nose with a sharp, pained gesture. "I didn't want to say."

"Well, of course not. Um. Will they come back?"

"I don't think so," Ishida said. He stared at the room with a bruised flatness of expression, a kind of impatient waiting for the blow that made Ichigo feel slightly sick.

"Okay. Let's get on with the planning."

Ikkaku raised a hand. "Not that I wanna be unfair about this, but if the Quincy here doesn't have any powers --"

"He's still a target," Ichigo said, trying to drown out the voice inside him that agreed with Ikkaku and muttered that this was no place for the weak. "Even if he doesn't stick with us, those Arrancar will probably come after him anyhow. And he can see them, which puts him head and shoulders above most people in handling this. So he might as well stay involved. Right?"

"Odd," Urahara said blandly. "I could have sworn all of the above applied to Inoue-san. I do hope she's all right."

* * *

Rukia was conscious of Aizen-sama's hand on her head as she knelt next to his chair. It kept her still. It let her focus on things around her; his hand, the darkness, the murmur of voices, anything other than the gnawing hunger throughout her body.

It wasn't just a hunger for food, of the sort that she'd learned so well in Rukongai. It was a hunger for something else; for touch, for warmth, for blood.

"Two more nights," Aizen-sama was saying, and his words soothed her. He was talking to Ichimaru Gin (and she still hated him, but it didn't matter, nothing mattered except the hunger and Aizen-sama). "The timing must be exact. We'll need both the high-level operatives and the low-grade ones to cause full confusion."

Ichimaru giggled. "You don't have to remind me, Captain."

"I just worry about you, Gin." There was a smile in Aizen-sama's voice, and Rukia wished through the mists of confusion that the smile could be turned on her. "You've always been one who couldn't resist his little amusements."

"Awww. Now would I go and spoil things now, Captain? After we've got this far?"

"I'm trusting you not to."

"Heh." Gin paced across to look down at Rukia. "Our little pet's looking all starved, Captain."

He was so pale. There was no blood in him. She was hungry.

"She is." Aizen-sama stroked her hair again. "I'm keeping her on a very strict diet. You don't want to be thinking too much, do you, Kuchiki Rukia?"

Thoughts fluttered in her mind like dark butterflies, but she agreed with him, she had to agree, the words came spilling out. "No, Aizen-sama."

"There you are." His praise warmed her. "A good example, wouldn't you say?"

Gin smiled, and the curve of his lips made her tremble. "Captain, I just can't wait to see what'll happen."

"I think you'll find it amusing," Aizen-sama said. His hand settled on Rukia's neck, cradling her head against his knee, and she leaned her face against his white robes and closed her eyes.

* * *

"Don't bother about hotel rooms." Urahara put down what might have been his ninth teacup of the night. "It'll be my pleasure to put everyone up here, and that way you'll know where to come in an emergency."

Renji and Nanao exchanged glances for a moment, then Renji nodded. "Thank you, Urahara-san. That will be convenient."

"And I should be getting home." Ichigo got to his feet, and stretched. "Coming, Chad? Ishida?"

"I'll come as well." Urahara unfolded to his feet, a lanky jointed puppet whose hat hid his eyes. "In case there are any strays waiting out there."

Ichigo would have objected, but the shopkeeper's words made sense. "All right," he said grudgingly. "If you must."

Chad grunted assent, and the four of them left the shop together, with the other shinigami still arguing behind them.

The eventual plan boiled down to, "trap one of these Arrancar things and kick the crap out of it while Urahara analyses it, then rescue Rukia." Ichigo had to admit that he couldn't see any flaws in it. And as opposed to this last night, this time they weren't all going to split up and get attacked separately. No. This time they were going to use the somewhat unfair tactic of superior numbers. And Orihime. He wasn't looking forward to telling her about it tomorrow. But he guessed that she'd be too glad to be brought into it to complain too much.

And if those bastards Aizen or Ichimaru showed up, then the crap-kicking would escalate. Yes. Ichigo liked that word. Escalation.

And if Rukia herself showed up -- well, she was going to get healed, and then he was_ really_ going to kick some crap out of idiots who made other people worry about them.

* * *

Yoruichi wrapped her tail around her feet. "This isn't _my_ problem," she said, with the edge of a growl to her voice. "Nobody told you to get married and have children."

"Children that you've been fast enough to exploit," Isshin snapped.

Yoruichi didn't react. She merely conveyed a smile in her posture and eyes. "Nevertheless," she purred, "if the full details about why we left Soul Society come out, then he's going to find out about you as well. It's to your benefit to keep your mouth shut. At least for now."

"And if the things come here?"

"Then Ichigo will probably be fighting them elsewhere, which means you're free to take whatever measures are appropriate. You were part of the Royal Guard. Don't try to tell me you can't still handle Hollows."

Isshin glanced up at the kitchen ceiling for a moment, as if he could somehow see through it to the bedrooms above. "Tell me you're not going to drag them into it," he said, and there was a very real threat to his words.

"Why should we need to? They're too young." Yoruchi sighed. "Look. Ichigo got himself involved."

"I've always wondered exactly why Kuchiki Rukia ended up here," Isshin said. One hand flexed.

"Kisuke's already discussed this one," Yoruichi said with weary patience. "More than once. You shield yourself well enough, but the children -- it was only a matter of time."

"I didn't want this."

"Then you're a fool. You shouldn't have had a wife. Or children. Or any of it."

"Not all of us are quite as capable as you are of cutting our hearts out, Shihouin-sama."

Yoruichi uncurled and stretched. "That's something little Soi Fong never learned, either."

"Poor girl," Isshin said, and sat there, alone in the kitchen, as the cat stalked out through the open window.


	6. Chapter Six

**REQUIEM**

**CHAPTER SIX**

"Oh," Orihime said cheerfully, "we were attacked by vampires last night."

Ichigo choked on his drink.

"You always have such wonderful things to tell us," Chizuru said admiringly. "So what happened with the vampires? Were they in filmy silk nighties with heaving bosoms? Or were they in long black velvet gowns with corsets and black nail polish?"

"Oh, there was just one," Orihime gestured. "He was really small and he sat on our doorstep and ate insects. Didn't he, Tatsuki?"

Ichigo choked again. Tatsuki hadn't been supposed to have been involved.

"It was just your average night," Tatsuki replied, with a glance at Ichigo that his guilty conscience considered far too pointed.

"Oh." Chizuru lost interest.

"And we need to talk, Kurosaki-kun!" Orihime said brightly. "I was telling Tatsuki all about my fairies --"

There wasn't any drink left to snort, but if there had been, Ichigo would have had it in his lungs rather than his stomach yet again.

"-- and we want to have a nice long talk with you about everything."

Ichigo tried to remind himself that he had faced down Kuchiki Byakuya, Sousuke Aizen, assembled Gotei 13 captains, a giant fucking phoenix, and vampires. It didn't get rid of the horrible sinking feeling he was now experiencing.

"C'mon," Tatsuki said, holding the classroom door open. "This is going to take a _while_."

* * *

That evening, Urahara's shop was crowded.

"I'm not sure I quite see why Arisawa-san is here," Urahara said smoothly.

"Yeah," Madarame Ikkaku agreed. "We don't need more people involved. And where did you get that black eye anyhow, Kurosaki?"

"I did offer to heal it," Inoue said, hands clasped to bosom, "but he said it wasn't serious. He said it was just a tiny flesh wound. He said that a man doesn't worry about that sort of thing --"

"I'm here to bodyguard Orihime," the Arisawa girl broke in. "Okay, I haven't got swords like all you lot, but I can see those things just as I can see you, and _nobody_ is going to get through me to hurt her."

"That's not a bad idea," Nanao said judiciously before anyone else could comment. "Thank you, Arisawa-san." She wasn't quite sure what Arisawa was capable of, but if Kurosaki had been persuaded to bring her in on things, then she had to be of some use. And it was always a good idea to have a bodyguard for the healers. Fourth Division was a classic example of how they'd forget their own limits and run into danger quite beyond their abilities. Morally admirable but strategically unfortunate. "What about your plans to trap one of these Arrancar creatures, Urahara-san?"

Urahara gestured dramatically, and the two children trotted out holding a blackboard between them. "It's comparatively simple," he said. "I've developed what could be roughly defined as a Negation anti-generator. When I fire it up, it'll be briefly impossible for those Arrancar to escape. We then capture one or more and examine them."

"Side-effects," Kurosaki said, in what seemed to Nanao to be a rather distrustful way.

"Nothing serious!" Urahara protested. "Maybe a little ringing in the ears, some difficulty with other kidou use --"

Nanao resolved to be very careful about where she was when that thing went off.

"-- and of course I haven't been able to field-test it yet." Urahara fanned himself with a stick of chalk. "So one can't be _absolutely_ sure about the results."

"Stands to reason they'd try to come here," Abarai Renji growled. "Unless . . ." His eyes flicked to Kurosaki for a moment. "They wouldn't try hitting Kurosaki's house, would they?"

Kurosaki whitened at the thought. "If they do," he swore, "if there's a chance of it --"

"Not to worry." Urahara snapped his fingers and pinged the chalk off Kurosaki's forehead, and pulled another piece out of his sleeve. "While you were busy at school today -- and I do hope you were studying hard for your exams, Kurosaki-kun, good results can only be achieved by constant diligence -- that is, while you were at school, I set up a few barriers and wards. Those Arrancar won't see anything. Your sisters will be quite safe."

"And Dad?" Kurosaki queried.

"Oh yes. Your father too, I'm sure." Urahara turned back to the blackboard, and sketched several arrows pointing at a central dot. "Now. This is you all. And here, at the middle, is the Arrancar. The only problem is bait . . ."

Kurosaki smiled what Nanao would almost have defined as a smile worthy of Ichimaru Gin. "Hey, I've got this brilliant idea. How about we make you the bait? They're certain to be looking for you."

"Wouldn't work," Abarai said sadly. "They wouldn't believe he'd be sitting out in public."

Urahara looked between the two of them. "Really, gentlemen. You almost sound serious."

"There's only one option," Shihouin Yoruichi said from the corner where she'd settled herself. "It's not a question of who makes a good bait; it's a question of who can't possibly conceal themselves. It'll have to be Ichigo."

Kurosaki sputtered. "Hey!"

"She's right," Ishida Uryuu agreed. "Hiding you is like . . . hiding a volcano, Kurosaki. The top keeps on coming off and spewing all over the place."

"And we know at least one of those Arrancar wants to get up and personal with you." Madarame Ikkaku nodded. "Hey, it'll be easy, kid. Just stand there with your sword out and yell, 'Oi! Arrancar! Come out and fight me!'"

"But won't that be dangerous for Kurosaki-kun?" Inoue asked timidly.

Kurosaki bit back whatever he'd been about to say and raised his head arrogantly. "I can handle it," he declared.

Urahara nodded. "Excellent plan. Now I'd suggest that Kurosaki stays _here_." He quickly sketched a street map on the blackboard. It swayed from side to side as the children struggled to hold it steady. "I'll stay here in my shop, with Inoue-san and Arisawa-san here, and listen for the explosions. When things start going boom, I'll turn on the Negation blocker. If we divide the rest of you into three groups -- say, the Eleventh Division here, Abarai-fukutaichou and Ise-fukutaichou here, and Yoruichi and Yasutora-san and," he hesitated for a barely perceptible moment, "Ishida-san here, then you can loiter on street corners and wait for the fighting to start."

"Didn't we try something like this last night?" Ishida asked suspiciously. He wasn't quite sure what he was going to do, but he wasn't going to be left out of it.

Urahara held up a finger. "But _tonight_, you have a more impressive bait -- no offense, Yasutora-san --"

"None taken," Yasutora rumbled.

"-- and you'll be able to stop them escaping. After all, last night wasn't actually a _failure_. You all survived, didn't you? And they didn't?"

"It was a failure in that you didn't manage to get any definite answers," Shihouin Yoruichi cut in. "Tonight we will. Last night you allowed yourselves to react. Tonight we shall act. Tonight -- yes, Orihime, what is it?"

Inoue had been waving her hand in the air. "Shouldn't I be with one of the groups out there, in case they need shielding or someone gets hurt?"

"No," Urahara said, before anyone else could. "For two reasons, Inoue-san. Firstly, this will all be happening close to my shop here. If anyone does need healing, we'll be able to get you to them fast enough. Secondly, there's a good chance that this shop will come under attack, in which case your talents will be needed."

"Especially if they work out that you're doing the anti-thingy field from here," Arisawa added, her jaw set. "They'll be coming right at you to break it."

"Precisely." Urahara's eyes gleamed from under his hat. "Ladies and gentlemen, to your places. The evening is about to start."

* * *

Ichigo loitered on the street corner, and reflected on how, had he been doing this in his normal body, he'd probably have been arrested several times over for suspicious behaviour while having punk-type hair.

Every whisper of breeze seemed to carry the acrid smell of Hollow on it. Every shift of shadow suggested a white-clad or oozing foot was about to emerge onto the street. Every distant clank of traffic could be the tread of something huge and disgusting approaching.

He should have insisted that Renji do the bait thing. This was a load of crap and he was bored out of his skull.

And this was so obvious. It was the equivalent of hanging a neon sign round his neck saying **HELLO, THIS IS A TRAP, PLEASE WALK INTO IT.** Only a moron would fall for it.

Reiatsu flared at the end of the street, and abruptly a group of white-clad, partly-masked figures was standing there.

Okay. So they were morons. He drew Zangetsu and hefted it.

"He's mine," the one with blue hair snarled. "I want a decent fight before I drain him."

And if they were that stupid . . . "Yeah, well, I don't know that I want to fight you." Ichigo yawned theatrically. "Are you the strongest of all that lot? Cause I'm not fighting you if you aren't."

The blue-haired one -- Grimmjow, that had been his name -- barked a laugh. "Oi. You really think we're that thick that we're going to start fighting each other to see who's strongest?"

Ichigo shrugged. "Yeah, well, worth a try."

There were four of them. He recognised two others from last night; the hulking one called Yammi, and the dark-eyed one called Ulquiorra. The remaining one, with pink hair and glasses, was just freaky.

Okay. He could handle one of them. He wasn't sure he could handle four at the same time. Wasn't this the bit where his backup was supposed to be arriving?

* * *

"Got any thoughts?" Renji asked. He was sharing a rooftop with Ise Nanao. He had to admit that she didn't belch, scratch herself, or fart, so it was an improvement on sharing a rooftop with certain elements of Eleventh.

Had he, he wondered dismally, become a wimp? Was this new discriminating attitude the fault of Kuchiki-taichou? Should he do something to maintain his masculinity?

"Yes," Ise said, eyes on the road below where Kurosaki was trying to look natural. "We need at least one for questioning, and the one yesterday with the dark eyes called Ulquiorra seemed to be in command. He would be the most suitable candidate."

Renji nodded. "And you're thinking of something," he surmised.

"Well. Without wishing to be rude, I don't think that anyone else here has any training in binding kidou."

"I had the standard Academy stuff," Renji protested, then shrugged. "But you'll be better at it than I am. So you're suggesting that if this one shows up, you slap a binding on him and hold him in place?"

"While you distract him, or deal with any others of them that are there." Ise nodded. "Even if he can't use Negation to escape, he can still run away, or separate us and then try to take us down one at a time."

Renji smirked, luxuriating in bankai-ness. "Some of us."

Ise sniffed.

They both stiffened at the sudden prickle of alien reiatsu. "Down there," Renji said, pointing unnecessarily. "And hey, it's the one we want."

"Give me a moment," Ise murmured. "It'll be easier if I use the full chant -- and if he's distracted."

* * *

"What is it?" Ikkaku asked.

Yumichika ignored him.

"Seriously, what the fuck is it? You've been brooding all day."

"That's just because you're too stupid to appreciate the current situation," Yumichika said, but his heart clearly wasn't in it.

"I'd like to see one of those things attack the Captain." Ikkaku snickered at the thought. "It'd be all, 'Let me drain your bloooood,' and trying to bite his neck, and the fangs'd just bounce right off, and then the Captain'd ball up his fist and smack it one in the face --"

"How much contact do you think it takes to make one of those things?" Yumichika asked. "If it spreads among the Hollows, imagine lots of them showing up and infecting more of them and so on. Don't you think that's worth worrying about?"

Ikkaku shrugged. "Who gives a fuck? That's not what's worrying you."

Yumichika sighed. "How can you tell?"

"Because I'm not stupid."

Yumichika shrugged. This was one of the things that Ikkaku was sure he practiced in the mirror. "Shouldn't we be discussing what we'll do when those things show up?"

"Easy. See Arrancar, fight Arrancar, kill Arrancar."

The familiar Eleventh Division logic seemed to calm Yumichika. "I suppose you're right," he said. "We should just take things as they come."

"It's what we do," Ikkaku began to say, then cut off as reiatsu flared and they both scrambled for a better view of their opponents.

* * *

"First things first," Yoruichi told the two boys. "We aren't running into the fight. Let the others do that."

"But --" Chad began.

Yoruichi gave him a slit-eyed glare that made him choke the words down before they could get any further. "The term, gentlemen, is strategic reserve. Ichigo and the shinigami will be holding the Arrancars' attention. What we do is wait till we decide where we are most needed. Then I tell you to move in and we move in. Yasutora, you're missile cover. I'm close combat. Ishida, you're spotter."

"Um, you mean, I . . ."

"Rear guard," Yoruichi said impatiently. "Flank. Up and down, even. Your reiatsu-sensing is better than Yasutora's, whatever your current state of power is. Do _you_ think they're just going to stand there and let us sneak up on them? No. Neither do I. They may be stupid individually, but they're being directed by an intelligent man. This may start with a frontal attack on Kurosaki, but it's not going to finish that way. They'll be expecting shinigami interference, but they won't necessarily be expecting us. Am I clear?"

"Yes, ma'am," Ishida said quickly.

"Yes, ma'am," Chad agreed.

There was the crackle of strange reiatsu from where they'd left Kurosaki.

"And that means," Yoruichi said, grabbing their collars, "not running out there right this minute to get a better view."

* * *

"So," Ichigo said nonchalantly. "Come on, then. Get on with it."

Grimmjow snarled. Force leaped from his hand in a searing bolt of blue-white that hummed through the air and smashed into Zangetsu hard enough to make Ichigo struggle to hold the blade steady.

* * *

"Now," Urahara said, and flipped a switch on the complicated device in the corner.

* * *

Nanao gasped and raised her hands to her head. The sudden disharmonious vibration in the air shattered her half-formed kidou. This must be Urahara's mechanism. He'd understated matters.

Abarai frowned. "I just felt something weird."

Ulquiorra raised his head and sniffed at the air. "As expected," he said.

"As planned, then?" the pink-haired one asked.

Ulquiorra nodded. "Be about your business."

* * *

Yumichika squinted thoughtfully. "If you take the big one and I take the one with glasses, Abarai-fukutaichou and Ise-fukutaichou can have the Ulquiorra one. Does that sound fair to you?"

"Sounds more than fair," Ikkaku said. "Did you hear something just now, by the way?"

"Nothing important, I'm sure," Yumichika said dismissively. "Oh look, they threw the first blast. Our turn."

* * *

Grimmjow pulled the sword from his belt, and he and Ichigo met in a concussion of blows. Ichigo was vaguely conscious of the arrival of reinforcements (Ikkaku was yelling, "Time to die, you fuckers!" which was hard to miss) but he was too busy trying to stay upright and wishing he had Zaraki Kenpachi here to introduce to this guy. The two of them deserved each other.

Then the one with pink hair did something and there was fog everywhere.

* * *

"The bastards!" Abarai exclaimed in hurt tones. "They planned this shit."

"Really," Nanao remarked, and she couldn't help her voice being just a _little_ sharp.

Abarai jerked a thumb at the spreading cloud of fog. "Do we go in, or wait for them to come out?"

Nanao frowned. "The street to our left is the one leading direct to Urahara Kisuke's shop. If this is a diversion to get there, they'll be coming that way. If we go up along it, we'll meet them if that's what they're trying."

"Makes sense," Abarai nodded. He leaped down, and led the way into the expanding mist.

* * *

"See," Yoruichi said, somewhat smugly.

"You mean, see as in see the big cloud of fog, or see that they really had a cunning plan?" Ishida inquired morosely.

Yoruichi slapped the back of his head. "Of course. Fool."

Chad grunted. "Do we go in, or stay and watch the edges?"

"Watch the edges," Yoruichi said immediately. "If any of them come out of that, we deal with them."

Chad sighed.

* * *

Ichigo and Grimmjow had lost the others in the fog, but that was fine, that was just fine, because Ichigo was actually enjoying himself for the first time in days, kicking the shit out of someone who deserved it. Admittedly Grimmjow wasn't showing any signs of falling over yet, and in fact was inflicting a fair amount of damage on Ichigo himself (he was going to go bankai any moment, really he was, just as soon as he couldn't take this any longer) but it was okay, and he could tell that Grimmjow was enjoying this too.

(Though it really didn't matter that Grimmjow was enjoying it. Who the hell cared about your opponent enjoying a fight?)

It was enough that he had someone in front of him who was involved in what had happened to Rukia, and that he had a sword in his hand, and that he was going to get some damn answers out of him. He could hear crashing noises through the fog. That had to be the others. Good for them.

Right now he was busy.

* * *

"Look," Ikkaku said to the big hulking one, "Yammi -- that's your name, isn't it? -- we just want you to understand that normally we wouldn't do this two to one shit, but right now things are kind of rushed."

"You can have him," Yumichika sniffed. "He is profoundly unaesthetic. I will just wander off on my own into this thick fog and _try_ to find someone worth my time."

"Is that okay?" Ikkaku asked the Arrancar hopefully.

"Yeah, sure," Yammi nodded. "Whatever. Look, I'm hungry. Can we get a move on?"

"Sure. Grow, Hoozukimaru!" Ikkaku ordered his zanpakutou.

Yumichika rolled his eyes as he wandered away. "Some people," he informed the wall.

Yammi charged like an avalanche, fangs glinting whitely in his mouth.

* * *

"So," the effete-looking pink-haired bespectacled Arrancar murmured, "you are shinigami."

"Yeah," Renji said. "Hey, Ise, want to go find someone else to fight? I'll handle this guy."

Even though she was directly behind him and he didn't have eyes in the back of his head, he was conscious of the way that her lips thinned and her glare turned into a focused laser beam. "Or you can have him if you want," he added gallantly.

"Think nothing of it," Ise said in tones that dripped with ice. "I'll wait here and immobilise him after you've defeated him. After all, the whole _point_ of this was to get information."

"Really?" The Arrancar adjusted his glasses. "Well, there's nothing to stop us talking while we're fighting. It'll help me work up an appetite." He smiled, fangs flashing. "And since I have certain standards in my meals --"

Renji readied Zabimaru. "What, you're another neck-fancying pervert?"

"Certainly not," the Arrancar said, drawing his own blade. "I happen to like them _intelligent_. But I daresay you'll do as an appetiser."

Renji bit back an immediate retort about how he had extremely good and attractive brains, thank you very much, he had brains that the Arrancar ought to be drooling over, because he was sure that Ise would make some sort of snippy comment. Also, he had to admit she had a point. This might not be the time for the classic Eleventh Division tactics of one-on-one duels. This might be an occasion for dirty fighting and ganging up on an opponent.

Of course, if this Arrancar was easy meat, then Renji had no problem with Ise lending a hand to immobilise him, since _obviously_ he'd have won anyhow and the challenge factor didn't come into it. The important thing was to make it blatantly clear in a few blows. Then they could dump this one on Urahara and go back to find the Ulquiorra one who looked like he'd been in charge.

Reiatsu bursts exploded elsewhere in the fog. Sounded like the others were having fun.

* * *

"So do we just sit here?" Tatsuki asked. She'd been pacing up and down the room for several minutes now, ever since Urahara threw the switch on his device.

Orihime had decided that it was a Device, actually, rather than just a device, and maybe even a Device of Doom, but she hadn't tried to explain this to the others yet. The constant hum of reiatsu interference from it was like a swarm of out-of-tune piranha bees, though that in itself would make a very good anti-Hollow device, if only you could train them.

"Unless we're attacked directly," Urahara said with a meaningless smile. He tossed his cane in his hand. "And in that case, Tessai and the children are the first line of defence, in which case --"

There was a crash outside. Orihime jumped.

Urahara's hand slid down to just below the handle of his cane. "Relax, my dear customers," he reassured them. "To get past those three --"

The children came _through_ the wall in a bundle, wrapped together in a tangle of arms and legs, with the boy doing his best to cushion the impact. The girl was unconscious, and one of her arms was bent in several places at the wrong angles. She was bleeding from nose and ears.

Orihime ran across to them. She was conscious of Tatsuki half a pace behind her and positioning herself between Orihime and the hole in the wall. That was all right. That was okay. She could trust Tatsuki to watch her back.

"Ow," the boy complained as he squirmed out from under the girl. "She okay?"

"She should be," Orihime reassured him, raising a healing shield over her. "Please stay where you are for a moment, you may be hurt too --"

The sound of footsteps, and the whisper of a drawn sword, and the prickle of rising reiatsu from two separate sources. She turned to see a young man in white robes and a bone half-helmet step through the door. His face was streaked with darkness like tears, and he surveyed the room with an utter dispassion and calmness that somehow chilled her to the bone.

"You must be Ulquiorra," Urahara said. He had drawn a blade from his cane. "I hope you left some of my shop intact. It's so difficult to get the stock these days."

* * *

"Over there!" Ishida shouted, but Yoruichi and Chad were already turning to look in that direction.

There was a hole opening in the air beyond the limits of the fog. _Urahara must be blocking whatever lets them get out, but not what lets them get here . . ._ It was like a giant mouth, toothy and sharp, a vicious dark grin ripped into the night sky and blocking out the stars, and _things_ were raining out of it.

Ishida tried to count them and identify them, in the slow coldness of panic. A giant with a scythe. A child with a stupid, gap-toothed smile. A woman with ragged wings sculpted into angles. A creature of tentacles and blobby masses. A man with winds wrapped around his body. Another with needles of ice. Things less defined and more shapeless.

Yoruichi took a long hissing breath. Reiatsu beat off her in waves like sunlight in August. Her loose upper clothing shredded to rags and tore away, leaving her in trousers and vest, with ripples of light twisting round her arms and fluxing across her back. "You two. Keep your back to the wall. Yasutora, give me cover."

Chad nodded, and raised his right arm. A force blast slammed from it and caught the Arrancar with the scythe in the side. The Arrancar's mouth widened into a broad slit of a smile as he turned towards them.

Yoruichi flickered into action, and ripped the Arrancar's head off in a single motion.

Ishida set his back to the wall, and watched, and would have given his soul to be able to _do_ something.

* * *

"You astonish me," the Arrancar said as he countered Renji's blow and slid sideways. "Why is it that you trust Urahara Kisuke?"

"'Cause he's a shinigami," Renji snapped, and brought Zabimaru lashing down in a long-toothed saw of violence that ripped into the street paving and opposite wall.

"Beside that." The Arrancar slipped round with unexpected speed, slicing neatly in and out. The hilt of his blade nearly brushed Renji's cheek. "I'm not talking about who he is, but about _what_ he is --"

"Rubbish." Ise's voice cut in, and Renji was torn between annoyance at her for interrupting, and gratitude for the brief distraction. Besides, this was information, right? Having someone _talk_ wasn't a proper interruption to a fight. Anyone who couldn't ignore that deserved to get his ass kicked.

"You're attempting to divide us," she went on. "To suggest that he might have experimented on himself with the Hougyouku --"

"I'm not suggesting." The Arrancar didn't shift his gaze from Renji to look at her. "Why do you think they expelled him from Soul Society?"

Renji didn't like where this chain of reasoning was going. Sure, he knew fuck all about Urahara besides the general thrown out of Soul Society for some sort of invention stuff, but the general impression he had was that of a dangerously unscrupulous lunatic who wouldn't hesitate before trying weird inventions on himself, and the only thing you could say about him that you couldn't say about Kurotsuchi Mayuri was that he didn't wear a weird mask or have a psychotic giggle.

"Don't be ridiculous," Ise said coldly as their blades clashed again. "There is absolutely no evidence to support this. Besides -- we would have noticed fangs like _yours_."

"You'll be noticing my fangs a little more closely very soon," the Arrancar hissed, distracted for a moment.

Renji took the opportunity, and slammed him into the opposite wall with a single blow. The cut left a long rip in the Arrancar's clothing and down his chest, and dark blood oozed from a wound in his shoulder.

"Want to surrender?" Renji asked.

"Oh." The Arrancar stretched, sword seeming to flex in the dim light. "Oh, you are going to _regret_ that . . ."

* * *

"Your petty concerns are unimportant." Ulquiorra had not bothered to draw his own sword, and that disturbed Orihime in itself. "I have come to offer you an ultimatum."

"Oh?" Urahara's pose was casual, but Orihime had seen enough fights by now to recognise it as battle-ready. "I'm listening."

"Submit to Aizen-sama. Take his blood and be loyal to him. Or serve as his nourishment. Despite your nature, you are still useful."

"I think that's awfully unfair," Orihime put in, unable to keep quiet at so unjust an insult. "There's nothing inherently _wrong_ with being a shinigami, even if some of them are very cruel or unkind or just don't listen to people, so just because Urahara-san is a shinigami doesn't mean he wouldn't make a good servant of Aizen." She blushed. "He might even make a very good servant!"

Urahara gestured at Orihime. "There you are. Unasked-for testimonials. Even if I totally refuse your offer, I'd like it on record that I would have made an absolutely _marvellous_ servant for Aizen Sousuke. Besides, this isn't going to work. Aizen must realise that. Ulquiorra-san -- I may call you Ulquiorra-san, I hope? -- you surely see that you're all being used. Expendable cannon-fodder. The vampire state that you're in requires constant feeding to stay stable, and the longer you remain on a spiritual plane, the more you need to consume. Eventually Hueco Mundo will become a feeding pyramid of carnivores that'll end up with just one left who will starve to death."

"You are fools," Ulquiorra said calmly. "All of you. None of you grasps Aizen-sama's power. Hueco Mundo was never the objective. But you will not live to use this."

Urahara blurred in a motion too fast for Orihime to follow, and was standing behind Ulquiorra in a single pulsebeat, his blade resting against the back of Ulquiorra's neck, smiling. "Now don't think of it that way. I'd like to see this as the beginning of a prosperous association between us. I can _help_ you."

"You can't even help yourself." Ulquiorra's words were dead as tombstone marble, quiet as stagnant water. He touched the hole at his neck, pale fingers sliding into it. "On Aizen-sama's command, I make this sacrifice --"

Orihime could feel it coming like a shiver on the air. She threw up her shield, invoking it with all the strength she had in her, blocking off her corner of the room where she and Tatsuki and the children sheltered, and through the shield she could see Urahara drawing a line in the air with his zanpakutou, carving through the air till it hung in a red curtain in front of him.

Ulquiorra exploded in a cloud of blood.

Orihime turned aside, choking at the stench and colour of it. She could feel Tatsuki's hands on her shoulders, bracing her, and she tried to pull herself together, but this was _worse_ than what Kurotsuchi Mayuri had done to his own men, this was everywhere, it was dripping down her shield as if it was trying to get in . . .

. . . it _was_ trying to get in. "No!" she screamed. "I reject you, I _reject_!"

Her shield flared blinding white, forcing the blood back and away. The stuff crackled and spat like frying oil, burning away fragment by fragment.

"Orihime," Tatsuki said, her voice horrified. "Look."

The blood wasn't just clinging to Urahara's shield, it was running through it like roots cracking stone, up his sword and along it in wreathing vines to his hand. Urahara wasn't even trying to resist, he was watching it with a sick look in his eyes that was something like acceptance and something like hunger.

"Urahara-san!" Orihime called to him, trying to rouse him to the danger.

"That's bad," the little boy said, worming round to peer round her knee. "We should be running."

The blood sank its tendrils into Urahara's hand. His fingers closed convulsively round the hilt of his zanpakutou as he fell to his knees, his shoulders heaving as he struggled for breath in great shaking gasps.

"I must help him," Orihime said. Shield still in front of her -- she wasn't that stupid, really she wasn't -- she advanced a step, then another. "Urahara-san? Are you all right?"

Urahara's hat slipped from his head to leave his pale hair free. He reached out with his left hand towards her. "Inoue-san . . ." There was something wrong with his voice.

"No." Tatsuki hooked an arm around Orihime's waist and pulled her back. "No way."

Orihime twisted round to look at her. "Let me go!" she demanded. "I've got to help him!"

"Inoue-san," Urahara said again, rising from his knees. He was as pale as old paper, eyes like holes in his head, and when he opened his mouth the two girls saw the glint of fangs. "Inoue-san. You don't need to be afraid. I'm not going to -- to hurt you." He took a breath. "Just lower the shield for a moment."

"Don't," Tatsuki said.

Urahara's zanpakutou was smoking. Thin veils of scarlet air drifted upwards from it as though it was burning holes in the air.

"Lower the shield," Urahara said, his voice stroking the words, as smooth as velvet, and he took a step forward.


	7. Chapter Seven

**REQUIEM**

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

Rukia was a ball of misery in the corner of the room.

The Tower had been easier. She remembered the Tower of Penitence (white tower pale tower death tower) like a haven of calm. She had looked out at the scaffold, she had remembered the past, and it had been easy to say goodbye and prepare herself for death. As easy as counting petals in a cherry blossom.

Easy. So easy. Nothing was easy now. The hunger and the thirst swamped her mind. She couldn't think clearly from one minute for the next. There were things that she'd dreamed she'd done, and they were wrong, so wrong, but it had stopped the thirst for a little. She could remember a hand at the back of her neck and the taste of blood in her mouth.

She could remember her brother's voice saying _Hisana_, and she knew she had sone something wrong, very wrong.

If only Aizen-sama would let her feed. She was so hungry. If she had blood in her mouth she would be able to think again. It was the blood, it was the blood that was to blame. Blood rose in her mind and drowned the elegant structures of ice that she had spent the years building, it melted the turning snow that made the world clear, it soaked her sleeves and gloved her hands.

She had done something wrong. She dreamed it. Her stomach knotted into cramps and she put her knuckles to her mouth and bit at them to try to think, and was surprised when the skin parted.

"Uh-uh. Bad girl, bad Rukia-chan." Ichimaru Gin stood at the door of the room and looked in on her, with Aizen-sama behind him. The darkness haloed them. "Come on, Rukia-chan. We've got a little something to arrange."

"Remember," Aizen-sama said, "no witnesses. And if our expected visitors don't arrive on schedule, then they are to lie quiet until night falls."

"And everything else begins." Ichimaru chuckled. "I'll see to it, Captain. Don't worry. Come on, Rukia-chan." He held out both hands to her.

Rukia uncurled herself and stood up. She felt hot and cold at the same time, feverish yet shivering. The air was full of scents, perfume and alcohol and dust and flowers, but most of all she could smell blood.

* * *

"You're not much of a challenge," Grimmjow said. He and Ichigo had paused to stare at each other meaningfully and catch their breath. "You call yourself a fucking shinigami?"

"No," Ichigo snapped. "Well, yes, but other people called me it first. And look at you. Are you supposed to be the new wave of Hollow or something?"

"Newest and best, fuckwit." Grimmjow launched a strike that nearly stove in the side of Ichigo's chest.

Ichigo barely parried it. "Yeah, well, I've got one thing to say to that," he growled, trying to get his breath back.

"And what's that?"

"Bankai."

* * *

Ikkaku sniffed at the air. "I smell power."

"Huh. I smell blood." Yammi swiped at him again. The Hollow's reiatsu filled the space between buildings like stagnant water. It wasn't up to Zaraki's, of course -- nobody else's was -- but Ikkaku considered it an adequate challenge.

"Look." Ikkaku parted Hoozukimaru and balanced its three pieces between his hands, ready to strike. "Show me your full strength!"

"Yes!" Yammi snarled. "At last someone who understands! I'll rip your throat out but you'll die happy!"

* * *

Renji couldn't help it. All Eleventh Division's traditions were tugging at him. "Stay out of this, Ise," he said, his eyes on his opponent. "This is one on one."

He heard a sniff from behind him, but she didn't try to argue.

"Thank you," the pink-haired Hollow said graciously, adjusting his spectacles. Blood ran from the wound in his shoulder, staining his white coat black where it touched the fabric. "I appreciate the chance to give you my full and undivided attention."

"Will you just shut the fuck up with the creepy come-on remarks and fight me?!" Renji shouted.

"Certainly," the Hollow said. He gestured.

Things exploded.

Renji pushed himself off the ground by using Zabimaru as a lever. He was aware of the zanpakutou's complaints and mentally promised his noble and worthy blade that it would have proper attention and polishing when he had some fucking time to do so. He could see Ise over to one side. She seemed to have been hit worse than he had; she wasn't making any attempts to stand up.

The Hollow came striding out of the smoke and almost negligently batted aside Renji's attempt to cut him in half. "Don't bother," he advised, grabbing Renji by the throat with one hand and by the wrist with the other. He stalked forward, shoving Renji ahead of him, until Renji felt his back jar against a wall. "After the report of last night's little contretemps, I deliberately designed those explosives to match your reiatsu, and I chose you as my opponent. A vice-captain, after all? And with bankai? Clearly worth my attention. I didn't expect to take down the woman so easily, but it does make matters easier -- oh, do stop trying to hit me."

Renji couldn't seem to pull himself together and focus. It was like being pissed out of his skull on cheap booze, only less agreeable and without the friends refilling his cup. "Damn you," he spat, and tried to keep hold of Zabimaru. It ought to be simple, right? Focus. Break loose. Swing. Not being pinned against the wall like this oh fuck get this bastard off him and he was trying to put a knee where it'd do some good except that the bastard somehow guessed it was coming and turned his leg to catch it and the bastard's hands were so damn cold and he could feel the bastard's breath on his neck. On. His. Neck.

* * *

Yumichika ran for Urahara's shop. All this splitting up of forces was smelling more and more like decoying to him with every passing moment. And if they were being decoyed _away_ from something, then where better than from Urahara Kisuke's place?

He made a mental note to describe this more elegantly in his eventual report.

As he approached, he saw the hole in the side of the shop, and congratulated himself on his good judgment. A Hollow had come in this way. There was no sign of a Hollow having come out this way. Therefore there was at least a decent chance of a Hollow to fight inside the shop. Unless Urahara Kisuke was a mean despicable fight-stealing sort of fellow.

Stepping lightly over the unconscious form of Tessai (the man was bleeding, he was still alive, no problem), he headed inside.

* * *

"What's happened to you, Urahara-san?" Orihime asked. She couldn't keep the fear from her voice. "What did that Hollow do to you?"

"Nothing serious," Urahara said reassuringly, but he wouldn't meet her eyes. "Just a flare-up of an old condition. Easily resisted. But your healing would be very welcome, Inoue-san -- lower the shield and help me, won't you?"

"He's lying," Tatsuki said. She put her hands on Orihime's shoulders, as though she could strengthen her resolve. "He'd say anything to get you to let him in."

"So young to be so distrustful," Urahara marvelled. "I'm hurt, truly hurt by the cynicism of the young these days . . ."

The room still smelled of blood. Orihime could feel herself shaking. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself, to ignore Urahara, ignore Tatsuki, ignore even the shrieking voices of the Shun Shun Rikka, and find a moment's quiet and balance. "Urahara-san. You don't have to worry. I can heal you without lowering the shield."

"But I want you to lower the shield." Urahara took a step forward and put one stained hand against her barrier. The energy buzzed against his flesh. "All you have to do is let me in, Inoue-san. I'll take care of everything else."

He met her eyes. He had such dark eyes. They were so experienced. They were the eyes of someone who knew what was going on, who understood everything, and who was willing to help. He'd look after her, the eyes said. He'd keep her safe and close just like her brother had . . .

Tatsuki's fingernails dug into Orihime's ear, and she yelped, shaking her head to get Tatsuki loose. "Ow! That hurts!"

"Good," Tatsuki snapped. "Oi! Urahara-san! Snap the hell out of it or we're sitting behind this shield till everyone gets back and then I am going to get Orihime to heal you and I hope it_ itches_."

"Jinta," Urahara said calmly. "Make them let me in. But don't hurt them too much."

The little boy scrambled to his feet and threw himself at Orihime. Tatsuki got in the way, blocking his grab and slamming him back with a straight open-palm strike to the chest.

"Don't hurt him, Tatsuki!" Orihime called desperately.

Tatsuki was shaking her hand. "Me not hurt _him_, hell. Tell him not to hurt _me_. Kid, can't you see your boss is ill?"

The boy threw himself at Tatsuki again. She dodged sideways, and he crashed into the inside of the shield. There was something automatic, almost programmed, about his motions.

"Can't you --" She felt a growing energy pressing against the shield. "No!" she shrieked, spinning round to face Urahara again, "I won't let you!"

"Inoue-san," Urahara said, "you won't have a choice."

"Well now," a new voice said. Yumichika was standing there in the hole in the wall, looking around the room with an expression of mild surprise, sickle-blade naked in his hand. "This all seems tremendously untidy. May I ask what --"

Urahara turned to face him, and Yumichika took a step back, bringing his blade up in front of him. "Oh dear," he said.

* * *

The night was a collection of violent fragments for Ishida, separate moments of noise and light and breaking architecture. He shrank back behind Chad, his hands constantly clenching and unclenching as muscle memory urged him to call bow and arrow, and watched Yoruichi tearing through the mass of Hollows. Energies twisted and knotted around her shoulders and down her arms and back, flowing out in a waterfall of furious crackling lightning, and those Hollows who tried to attack her from behind were simply burned away, scorched to ashes in a single scream.

Chad fired scientific blasts at the Hollows who tried to target them, but most of them were concentrating on Yoruichi, and Ishida couldn't blame them. She was magnificent and perfect and somehow taboo, untouchable energy in that sculpted body.

The little Hollow that came dropping down from the roof above took Chad by surprise. He stumbled back, crushing Ishida into the wall. Ishida struggled to peer round Chad, and saw that the creature was a child. Untidy hair, snaggled teeth, blankly innocent eyes that didn't seem to quite grasp what was going on.

"Little one," Chad said, "don't make me hurt you."

Ishida gasped. He was about to say _they're Hollows, it doesn't matter what they look like_ or maybe _it only looks like a child, it isn't really a child_ or something, _anything_ that would have warned Chad. He'd grown up knowing about Hollows. Whatever they looked like, whatever they seemed to be, they were hungry, and that was all there was to it. It didn't even matter if they were evil. They were hungry. They ate human souls.

He didn't have the time to say it. The Hollow jumped at Chad, swerving under the instinctive blast (but too little, too late) that Chad fired at him, and brought him down to the ground with a strength and momentum that were impossible for its size. Its smile widened to show sharp little fangs, and it ducked its head towards Chad's throat with a gesture that was almost apologetic, almost cute.

There wasn't time for Yoruichi to get there, no time for her to even see what was going on. There wasn't time for anything except for Ishida's hands to automatically move to the right positions -- hold the bow, draw back the string and _know_ that the arrow is there. There was no thought to it. There was no Quincy pride, no Quincy honour, not even the Quincy name on his lips, but only the training that he had grown up with. His grandfather's hands on his, showing him the form. His grandfather's presence behind him. His grandfather believing in him.

The arrow leapt from his hands in a blaze of force and ripped through the Hollow's head, turning it to dust before it could finish its shriek of surprise and pain.

Chad dragged himself to his feet, swaying. "Thanks," he grunted, and fired another blast at the Hollows closing in.

Ishida joined him.

* * *

Ikkaku had reluctantly concluded that this fight was not in his favour. On the other hand, neither was it in Yammi's favour. Both of them were what other members of Eleventh Division termed "stand there and beat the shit out of the other guy" fighters. The battle was developing into a straight matter of attrition and who was going to be standing last.

It was, in a way, irritating. He could sense reiatsu bursts going off all over the place -- even a bankai, if he wasn't mistaken. All that good fighting going on, and here he was stuck in something longterm. Of course, this Yammi guy wasn't a _bad_ fighter, and he might even win, but it was like missing out on a high-class buffet, even if he'd got some damn excellent soba noodles instead.

He'd hauled out his bankai five minutes ago, and apart from making Yammi drool even more, it hadn't done much. He was still building up its strength, and so far it was just inflicting scrapes and scratches, not the almighty shit-hammer effect he'd wanted.

Maybe when he'd got enough energy into it, he'd be able to make an impression. He spared a moment's gratitude that due to the hurried and slightly favour-for-a-favour nature of the whole mission, they hadn't got those fricking limiters stuck on them. He disapproved of them on principle. They stopped him fighting things. How the hell could anyone claim that was a good idea?

A whirling hurricane of air and dust cut through the air above him, and both he and Yammi paused in the latest exchange of blows to look up. The Kurosaki brat, in full bankai gear, was facing off against one of the other Hollows, and looked like he was having about as much luck as Ikkaku was. It seemed the Hollow was also the speed and energy type, and the two of them had bloodied each other but not much more.

Ikkaku's mouth curled into a vicious grin, as a thought dropped into his mind fully formed and sparkled there like fine steel. Of course.

"Kid!" he yelled, tensing himself to leap. "Kurosaki! Change partners!"

* * *

Normally, Yumichika would have liked, no, would have been _ecstatic_ at the thought of a battle against a Captain, even a scientific type like Urahara Kisuke. There could be no better test of his abilities, no greater personal struggle.

Under the circumstances, however, he supposed that he should try to keep him alive so that sweet pretty Inoue-chan could find a way to turn him back to normal, which put him under the most unreasonable limits in terms of what he could and could not do.

He shook his hair back defiantly. "Urahara Kisuke," he began, "I don't know what's going on but --"

A blast of kidou hit him in the chest and knocked him through two distinct walls. (He was counting.) He came to his feet with a roll and a bounce, shaking off dust from his clothing, and mentally rapped himself over the knuckles for forgetting that scientific-type Captains might indulge in kidou as well as swordsmanship.

Well. Urahara would have nobody but himself to blame for what would happen next.

Darting back into the room, he dodged another burst of kidou and spread the peacock-tails of his blade, focusing on the reiatsu that he could feel emanating from the other man. And oh, it was so much richer than anything he'd had before -- fuller, stronger, sweeter, like distilled liquor after cheap beer, like plum wine after water. It ran through his veins and filled him. He knew that within moments he'd be able to strike Urahara down. He'd be able to strike anyone down.

He wondered, in the part of his mind that wasn't hungry, why Urahara was smiling at him like that.

Hungry. Yes. That was a word for it. He was pulling in energy and it wasn't _enough_. He needed more. It was cold energy, bracing and icy like water in winter, and it made him somehow thirsty. Those earlier thoughts of wine were becoming something else, now, something sharper, something like the taste of blood in his mouth. Fujikujaku was screaming in his mind as it flared with light (and why did it remind him of corpselight, of corruption?) and he wanted more, still more.

Urahara pointed with his zanpakutou to the shield that the two girls were cowering behind. The tough little one had just managed to bring down Urahara's shopboy, and was restraining him, and both of the girls were looking at him with a horror that made no sense.

But the shield itself was energy, and behind it was blood, and both of them were food, and he was very hungry.

* * *

Nanao watched the scene from under her eyelashes. Faking unconsciousness had been the sensible thing to do; this Hollow was clearly too intelligent to stand still and let himself be captured, but equally he seemed far too proud of that intelligence, and far too willing to believe that she would fall down like a house of cards after such insignificant damage. But with that level of power on his part, she needed an opportunity to get in a decisive stroke.

Hopefully Abarai would give her one. And hopefully he'd accept her apology afterwards.

The Hollow had pinned Abarai against the wall, and was lowering his face to nuzzle at Abarai's neck. Abarai was muttering something, trying to fight back, but he didn't seem to be able to muster a resistance. The air throbbed with unfamiliar shades of reiatsu, like currents of dye congealing in water. Nanao wished she had the chance to study them longer.

There was something langorous about their motions. Both of them. It was like a dance. The way that the Hollow's tongue flicked out to touch Abarai's neck for a moment, that Abarai tried to raise his hand to fight back, that the Hollow's lips parted fully and he sank those white teeth into Abarai's neck. Abarai's gasping flinch back against the wall, and his soft murmurs of anger, his swearing uncomfortably akin to moans as he closed his eyes . . .

Nanao swallowed. She hadn't meant to see it as erotic. She didn't want to see it as erotic.

Her lips silently formed the words of the Iron Pillars kidou as she watched the two of them.

Abarai's fingers trembled on the hilt of his zanpakutou.

She couldn't let him drop it. She owed him that much, as a fellow shinigami and vice-captain. For his pride. For his honour. She released the kidou, and the pillars materialised, slamming harshly around the Hollow and forcing him back.

The Hollow cried out in surprise, blood staining his mouth and teeth. Before he could react further, she rose to her knees and invoked fire and lightning down on him, the Flame Cannon, everything she could think of, till finally he stopped moving and hung between the pillars, charred and gasping.

Abarai slid down the wall, his back still against it, till he was sitting on the charred pavement, eyes blurry and still unfocused. But at least he was still holding his zanpakutou.

* * *

Ichigo stared down at Ikkaku. "What?" he said.

"You heard me!" the 11th Division shinigami (a term, Ichigo felt, that was indistinguishable from 'moron') yelled. ""What the bloody buggering hell do you think I'm saying? Swap opponents!"

Ichigo looked at Grimmjow. He looked down at the big thug that Ikkaku was fighting. He looked up at Grimmjow again. He had to admit that his current strategy wasn't having much success -- but he wasn't going to let a fight go by simply because he thought that he might lose. No, he was going to pull himself together and wipe this punk of a blue-haired moron off the face of the earth. He was going to . . .

"Fine," Grimmjow shrugged. He pointed a finger at Ichigo. "Don't go away. I haven't finished with you yet."

"Hey!" Ichigo protested, as Grimmjow leapt down to street level and swaggered towards Ikkaku. "_Oi!_"

The bulky one grunted. He leapt into the air, blood trickling from a dozen wounds, and landed on the rooftop across from Ichigo. The tiles dented under his feet, and long fracture lines ran across the roof. "Okay. You don't look like you're up to much."

Below, Ikkaku had some great big sort of multipart axe hoisted across his shoulders. As Ichigo watched, the markings on it filled up with crimson.

"Hey," the bulky one said. "Are you paying attention?"

"Sorry," Ichigo apologised. "But I _was_ having a good fight before he barged in."

Below, Ikkaku spun the centre part of the axe-thing above his head. The two end parts, unreasonably big, seemed to float in the air and gather the remaining light to them.

Grimmjow came at him at a run, fingers extended to rip his heart out.

Ikkaku brought the end of the blade down like a hammer from heaven. The very air exploded, slamming outwards in gusts of wind and dust and crackling energy and blood.

The bulky one snarled. He turned to Ichigo. "Okay. You --"

Ichigo might not have had _that_ much experience, but he'd been beaten up by the best, and every once in a while he was capable of seizing an opportunity. "Getsuga Tensho!" he snapped, firing blast after blast at Yammi. As expected, they didn't have much effect, but they gave him the chance to circle round behind the Hollow, and dart in before it had the time to react. It was tough, but it wasn't fast.

But it wasn't tough enough to take Zangetsu in the face. The half-jaw of bone shattered, and with a final howl of fury the Hollow blew apart into dust.

In the sudden silence, Ichigo realised that he had injuries. He had a lot of injuries. They were clamouring for attention. They were putting up little red flags and jumping up and down and trying to suggest that he sit down for a few minutes and catch his breath.

He staggered over to the edge of the roof. Ikkaku was lying in the street below in the middle of a circle of destruction, the battered remains of his weapon clutched in his hands. The weapon's edges were broken and jagged, as though it had shattered on something, and Ikkaku himself had a great wound across his bare front, with the white of ribs showing through the red of blood and torn muscle.

But there was no sign of Grimmjow.

* * *

Choujirou Sasakibe sorted through reports. His brows drew steadily together as he summarised the information into a report for his Captain.

Item, a number of lower-level shinigami missing. Entire patrols not returning. The patrol numbers had been raised and that seemed to have stopped further disappearances, but the other interpretation of that would be that whoever was doing it had become more subtle.

Item, the current state of morale.

Item, judging by the look of certain Captains and Vice-Captains attending general meetings, there was some sort of illness going around. Perhaps Yamamoto-soutaichou should raise the matter with Unohana-taichou. After all, while there were natural and plausible and frequent reasons for pale faces and headaches and general malaise on the part of Kyouraku-taichou or Matsumoto-fukutaichou, Kuchiki-taichou would never allow his private life to affect his work in that way.

And most of all, item, the loss of communications with the world of the living. One of the periodic disturbances had struck the dimensional barriers between the world of the living and Soul Society. Passage had become hazardous: communications had become impossible. While he was not a betting man, he would have put half his salary on it not being a coincidence.

He finished initialling reports, and looked out at the dawn sky. The clouds were streaked red and grey and white. A storm was coming.

* * *

"Tatsuki," Orihime said quietly, "I think we're in trouble."

Tatsuki got her knee squarely in the small of Jinta's back and rapped his head against the ground hard. He went still. "Oh, really?" she said. "Fine. You knock down feather-boy, I'll drop-kick the kid into Mr Vampire's face, and we run for our lives. Okay?"

Yumichika pointed his zanpakutou at the shield. Rippling waves spread out of it towards the wall of light that protected them. Orihime could feel it brushing against her power like currents of water, rising with every passing second.

"I've got to try to heal him," she murmured, "but I can't drop the shield."

Tatsuki grinned up at her. "Hey. You can do it, Orihime. I know you can."

Orihime took strength from that faith. "If you believe in me, then I can believe in myself. Ayame! Shunou!" She pointed both hands at Yumichika. "Twin Sacred Return Shield! I reject!"

Light flashed out in a double flare as the two Shun Shun Rikka whirled into existence and flung themselves in a spiral around Yumichika, building the healing shield around him. He cried out incoherently, slashing at them and at the shield with his zanpakutou, and Orihime gasped and shuddered as she felt the hooks of the blades pass through her spirit, like claws lashing at her. She was conscious of Tatsuki calling out to her, shouting to her to hold on, that she could do it, but it hurt, it really _hurt_, and she could feel herself crying.

_I won't let him hurt Tatsuki. I won't let him hurt anyone. This isn't him. I will make him well again. Yumichika-san, you were always so kind, this isn't what you want any more than it's what Urahara wants, it's horrible, it's madness, I won't let it happen --_

Her healing shield flared one final time and dissolved. Yumichika crumpled to the ground, his zanpakutou in its sealed form again, and lay there like a rag doll.

Urahara's blade struck the shield that enclosed her and Tatsuki. It rang like a gong, the vibrations going through her and knocking her down, and she fell to the ground with a scream, hands pressed against her head as the Shun Shun Rikka vanished.

Tatsuki scrambled to her feet, and sprang between Orihime and Urahara. Her hands were raised in a defensive stance. "You don't touch her," she said flatly.

"I don't?" Urahara affected mild surprise. His fangs showed as he smiled. "Arisawa-san, don't think of this as being in any way unkind. I just very badly need to --"

"Run!" Tatsuki shouted at Orihime, and dropped into a squat, sweeping a low kick at Urahara's ankles and then sliding up into a straight blow at his groin.

It was a perfect move. Orihime was conscious of that, through the tears of pain that filled her eyes, even as she tried to gather herself enough to form a shield again. It was the sort of move that would have been an automatic full points and win in a competition.

Urahara stepped aside from the first blow, blocked the second, picked Tatsuki up by her wrist and the back of her neck, and threw her into the wall. She slid down against it and didn't move again.

Orihime pointed her hand at Urahara. "Don't touch her! Don't hurt her! I'll --" Tsubaki was screaming in her head, demanding to be let loose, ordering her to fire him right through the shopkeeper. One blow. Take him down. Stop him. "I'll kill you," she said thinly.

"You might. You actually might." He nodded, and for a moment she thought she could see a likeness to Aizen Sousuke. "Don't worry, Inoue-san. She's still alive. I saved her for you. You'll be needing fresh blood shortly."

Orihime flinched. "That's sick."

"No. It's like being a Hollow. You should understand that. You want to have the ones that you care for. You want to take them yourself, to bring them over yourself, to have them with you . . ." He smiled at her. "You're not going to shoot me, Inoue-san. You'd rather heal me."

He looked human now, and he spoke like a human, but if he thought that she could kill Tatsuki, if he could _make_ her kill Tatsuki, then there was nothing human left in him. He was as corrupt as the Hollow she had purified before. Calmness gave her certainty and let her focus. She felt Tsubaki forming at the end of her fingers, felt the light begin to cohere and arc towards him --

-- and a blade flashed between the two of them, batting Tsubaki away in a clatter of wings and a surprised torrent of curses.

Kurosaki Isshin was standing between them. He was in shinigami robes like Ichigo's, and he was holding a zanpakutou of his own. "I had hoped it wouldn't come to this," he said gravely, and for once there was no laughter in his voice, no amusement or play-acting in his face. "I'd hoped I'd never have to do this."

Urahara smiled at him. "Did you? But I always knew you might. Why do you think I didn't try to get away?"

"Well then." Isshin turned his blade so that the edge faced Urahara. "Shield yourself, Orihime-chan. This is going to be messy."


	8. Chapter Eight

**REQUIEM**

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

"Hey," Renji said blearily. "Don't have to hit me that fucking hard."

Ise Nanao stopped slapping his cheeks. "Awake?" she said dryly. "Good. You're missing a great deal, Abarai-kun."

"What." He raised his hand to his neck. There didn't seem to be any sort of open wound there, but his hand came away wet with blood. "Shit, was that a bad dream?"

"No." Ise had the tight-lipped look of pinched fury that he'd seen on her once or twice during particularly dramatic examples of carelessness from her Captain. "To summarise, the Arrancar attacked you, it bit you, I brought it down, it is currently immobilised, and I have used basic healing kidou to seal your wounds. And there are Arrancar all over the place. And something is happening at Urahara Kisuke's shop. Can you walk?"

The odds of him standing up weren't good, but the odds of him failing to stand up in front of a woman after something so minor as his neck getting bitten were even worse. "Don't be stupid," Renji said, pushing himself up to his feet. He swayed.

"Don't blame yourself," Ise said. She went down on one knee to hoist the scorched, battered, and noosed Arrancar over her shoulder.

"Are you sure you can carry it?" Renji asked. Admittedly he wouldn't have asked Rukia that. Then again, Ise wasn't likely to do immediate violence to him. Well, probably not. He thought not, anyhow.

"It weighs less than Kyouraku-taichou," Ise said, settling the weight with a grunt.

"Yeah." Renji really didn't want to think about some of the images that conjured up. "Um. Right. Urahara's shop, you say?"

"Just follow the explosions," Ise said, striding ahead.

Renji staggered after her.

* * *

Ichigo, dragging Ikkaku, ran into Chad and Ishida and Yoruichi in the middle of a pile of wreckage. Yoruichi was shaking dust off her fingers (Ichigo tried very hard not to think of them as clawed) and was nearly naked to the waist; the fragments of her top barely clung to her lush, well-shapen breasts.

"Ichigo," Chad greeted him. "Are you all right?"

There ought to be a better way of phrasing that sort of question. It was obvious that he was all right, wasn't it? He was upright and walking, wasn't he? "Yeah," he grunted in response. "You lot too?"

Chad nodded. "And Ishida can use his powers again."

"Huh." Ichigo shrugged. "Didn't take long."

Ishida shot Ichigo a look of such pure and undiluted hatred that it made Ichigo blink. "Is something wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing," Ishida said, and turned away with pointedly squared shoulders.

Yoruichi peeled back the chunks of cloth that Ichigo had wrapped Ikkaku's chest in, and examined it with a medical eye. "He'll live," she diagnosed. "But a bit of work from Kisuke wouldn't hurt."

Ichigo ran his hands through his hair. "Why are we all just standing here?" he demanded of the night sky. "Urahara must be under attack! This was all a feint!"

"Was that actually intelligent thought?" Ishida asked the empty air. "From Kurosaki?"

Yoruichi slapped them both across the back of the head. "Morons. Kisuke can look after himself."

Ishida staggered, then sniffed. "That's new," he said slowly.

"What's new?" Chad asked.

"It felt as if there was a new shinigami in town," Ishida said. "But it's not one I recognise."

Yoruichi turned and stared at him, then sniffed at the air herself.

"Yoruichi?" Ichigo said. He didn't like it when she looked surprised. Anything that could surprise her was probably bad news.

"Follow me to Urahara's," Yoruichi snarled, and darted off, leaping between buildings faster than his eyes could track her.

* * *

Orihime hid behind her shield, together with Tatsuki and the unconscious children, and watched the shop get smashed to pieces. She wished she could have got Yumichika behind the shield as well, but she couldn't quite make herself run out to drag him under it, and it didn't look as if they were trying to hit him anyhow, and maybe shinigami were just good at avoiding blows while they were unconscious.

She had experience in shinigami battles by now. In fact, it worried her a bit quite how much experience she did have. And based on her experience, while this fight between Urahara-san and Kurosaki Isshin wasn't _quite_ on the level of the fight between Kurosaki-kun and Byakuya-san, or a match for the pure destruction of the sort that she'd seen Zaraki-san dealing out, it was still pretty astonishingly destructive.

They were both radiating Captain-level reiatsu. She could feel it pressing against her shield and trying to crush her down to the ground; she could even tell the difference between their reiatsu. Kurosaki Isshin's reiatsu was less . . . edged. That was the best word for it. It had a sort of feel to it as if he hadn't used it for a while, and now that she thought about it, she supposed that he must have been a Deep Cover Agent or something, which would explain why he'd never told Ichigo anything. She hoped that he had told Kurosaki Masaki about it before she died. It'd be cruel to think of him keeping a secret like that from his wife.

"Unh," Tatsuki said, and opened her eyes.

Kurosaki Isshin and Urahara flashed between blows and parries. They weren't even trying to talk to each other. They were moving so fast that she could barely follow them.

She had to stop this, or they were going to kill each other.

"Tatsuki," Orihime said. "I need your help."

"'fcourse," Tatsuki muttered, still blinking, her voice slurred. "Whaddya need m'to do?"

"Well," Orihime said, keeping her voice down so that the two shinigami couldn't hear her, "I think I need to try to fix Urahara-san, but he's moving so fast that I can't get a lock on him, and even if I did, Kurosaki Isshin would probably react on instinct and hit him while I was distracting him and I think he'd kill him and that wouldn't help either. So I need to distract them both so they'll stay still just for a second."

Tatsuki sat up abruptly. "Orihime, you can't _do_ that."

Orihime drooped. She'd thought it was such a good idea. "I'd thought that if we both jumped up and down and shouted . . ."

"No. No, you don't get it. If _you_ make the distraction, they're going to be focused on you, and there's no way that Mr Vampire over there will let you do it."

Orihime wasn't stupid. "But if _you _make the distraction, you won't have a shield!"

"Yes, well." Tatsuki pulled herself up to her knees. "I'm counting on you to be fast enough that I won't _need_ one. Deal?"

Orihime took a deep breath. "Deal," she agreed. "So are you going to get out from the shield and then yell at them?"

"Sort of," Tatsuki said vaguely. "Wait for them to get over here again, they're about a hundred feet up right now, and then lower the shield and let me out and be ready to hit him with your healing thing."

Orihime nodded. "Be careful," she said.

"I'm always careful." Tatsuki bared her teeth in a grin. "Right. They're coming. On my count, three, two, one --"

Orihime relaxed the shield for a moment, and Tatsuki went rolling forward in a dive, staying close to ground level. She scuffled a few more paces forward, ignoring the two shinigami above her just as much as they were ignoring her. Orihime snapped the shield back up and watched, her heart in her throat.

Tatsuki stopped next to Yumichika's unconscious body, grabbing his blade up from where it lay on the ground.

_Oh no, Tatsuki, don't, they won't believe you can hurt them with that, they won't even come close enough . . ._

Tatsuki set her jaw in an expression familiar to Orihime from a hundred judo matches where she'd been cheering from the sidelines, and drew the blade across her wrist in one precise cut. Blood spurted out, dark in the fractured light and shadow, and Orihime could actually_ hear_ it as the drops hit the ground, through the noise of blows.

"Here!" Tatsuki yelled, raising her fist above her head. Blood ran down her bare arm in near-black trails. "Here, vampire vampire vampire! Here vampire --"

The two shinigami hung there, both poised, and Orihime thought that it was as much sheer shock and surprise which kept them there, as it was the struggle which twisted Urahara's face at the sight of blood, or the hesitation which shadowed Kurosaki Isshin's face as he began to pivot into a sweeping cut.

Orihime acted before she had time to think about it, about the blood and the danger and the naked blade, and threw the Shun Shun Rikka at Urahara with a sweeping gesture of both arms. "Ayame! Shunou! I reject!"

Urahara was a fraction too late in his movement. The two fairies wrapped themselves round him in a humming cocoon of light. He struggled inside it, and that was strange, because Orihime had never yet had to heal a patient who fought the healing, but she could, she _had_ to, and she would. She would make him the way he was before. She could rewind him to how he had been before that Hollow's contamination. All she had to do was will it.

She felt her shield begin to go down. She felt Tatsuki's shoulder supporting her. She heard Kurosaki Isshin saying something, but it wasn't clear, and it didn't matter anyhow. She _would_ do this thing.

Urahara stopped struggling.

She _would_.

She knew it when he was restored. He was just the same way that he'd always been. She called the Shun Shun Rikka back to her, and felt their light folding itself back into her hairpins. She smiled up at Isshin, trying to work out exactly why she was on her knees now and needing Tatsuki to hold her up. "Sorry," she apologised, and it was odd how she was having difficulty forming the words. "I think I've fixed him . . ."

Urahara sighed. "Status quo, Orihime-chan." He looked up at her, and there was sanity in his eyes again, sanity and balance, but there was a shadow in them that she hadn't known before, or maybe that she hadn't _wanted_ to know. "But thank you, dear."

She'd just shut her eyes for a moment, and it'd be all right. Tatsuki could look after her. Tatsuki always did.

* * *

"Just what the hell is going on?" Ichigo demanded.

He didn't think it was too much to expect an answer. Okay, so Urahara had turned into a vampire or something like that, the place had been blown to smoking rubble and surprisingly big sub-basements, most of them were injured, everyone was wandering round and talking at once, but he only wanted to know what the _hell _his dad was doing dressed as a shinigami and looking a lot more serious than usual.

"Ichigo! My boy!" his dad said cheerfully. "I knew you'd be able to handle things!"

Ichigo pointed a finger at his dad. "Oi. Don't think you're getting out of it that easily. I want some answers. You can't seriously be a fucking shinigami."

"Actually, he is," Urahara said, and scrubbed at his mouth again with the back of his hand. He'd been doing that a lot over the last five minutes. "More than that, he always was."

"Move," Tatsuki said, pushing past Ichigo. She had a wad of bandages wound round her left wrist. "I need to check on Orihime."

"Out of the way, moron," Renji said, dragging a chained Arrancar in charred white robes and with mussed pink hair and broken glasses through the milling group. "We got ourselves a prisoner."

Ichigo decided to try shouting louder and see if that helped. "What the fuck are you doing being a shinigami?" he screamed at his dad.

"The usual sort of thing," Isshin replied. "Sending on Hollows and protecting the innocent."

"No, but . . ." It was positively strange to see his dad looking so damn _competent_. "Why the hell didn't you tell us? Tell me?"

"Oh. Like you told me." Isshin shrugged, and turned to Urahara. "Kisuke, you'd better handle this one."

"All right," Urahara said. He sat down on the only spare bit of floor, and slipped his fan back into his sleeve. "It goes like this. Believe it or not, the Council of 46 was being kind to me at the time. It could have been much worse."

"Worse than this?" Renji demanded, gesturing around the room.

"Worse for me," Urahara said. "I was doing what most people do, sooner or later. Trying to find a way to become stronger. Unfortunately for me, I found it."

He leaned back, watching them from under the brim of his hat. "Aren't you going to say anything?"

"What, you think we're going to be surprised you did it?" Ikkaku grunted. He was propped up on a pile of cushions. Yumichika was sitting next to him, polishing at his sword in much the same way that Urahara was rubbing at the corners of his mouth

"Well, some sort of acknowledgement would have been nice . . . oh well, never mind. Yes. I was looking, just like Sousuke-kun was, for a way to step past the boundaries of both shinigami and Hollow. The difference between us is that I _succeeded_."

Yoruichi made a vague gesture which somehow conveyed that there might be a few other differences as well, minor as they were. She had retained her human form and was leaning against the wall nonchalantly, shoulders bare, smoke rising visibly from her body into the cold night air. "We don't have all night, Kisuke. So you turned yourself into a vampire. We both know it wasn't deliberate."

"Oh, do we now," Ichigo muttered.

Urahara shot him a sharp glance. "Something on your mind, Kurosaki-kun?"

"Yes. Yes, there is." The thought had been growing more and more definite as Urahara had been talking. "All that weird shit you pulled on me -- the shattered shaft and the chain and the beating up by that little girl and everything and this fucking problem I now have with --" he suddenly realised that he'd been about to say too much in front of everyone, "-- with stuff, how much of that has your vampire shit involved?"

"I'd be interested in knowing that as well," Isshin said casually.

Urahara shrugged. "Not much. Any side effects are purely psychological. You aren't feeling any need to suck anyone's blood at the moment, are you, Kurosaki?"

"_Fuck_ no," Ichigo said hastily.

"Well then." Urahara looked at them all. "There were side effects. The . . . hunger for blood . . . was the main one. However, I had determined that if a shinigami with this little problem should be in a gigai in the mortal world, the need for blood was significantly lessened. Thus the exile."

"What you are saying makes sense, Urahara-san," Ise Nanao said blandly. She didn't even seem to have broken a sweat during the night's efforts, Ichigo thought bitterly. She'd even managed to clear off the worst smudges of dust and ash. "Would I be correct in guessing that a member of the Royal Guard came along as your warder?"

"What?" Ichigo said. He could see the other shinigami all looking at his dad, and giving each other significant looks, but frankly he didn't know what she was getting at.

Isshin nodded to Ise Nanao. He turned to Ichigo. "The Royal Guard is an elite group. Someone had to be here who had the ability to stop Urahara Kisuke if he lost control. Someone who didn't have an emotional attachment to him. No offense, Shihouin Yoruichi."

"None taken, Kurosaki Isshin." Yoruichi yawned. "Though even the Royal Guard aren't exactly incorruptible, are they?"

Renji looked at Isshin. He looked at Ichigo. He looked at his fingers. He looked at Urahara. "Master gigai designer, huh?" he said flatly.

"A deal was struck," Urahara said. "Stop fuming like that, Kurosaki-kun, and let me explain. Your father was in love. He wanted a gigai that would allow him to have children. Hence, you and your sisters. So next time you feel like trying to do something unpleasant to me, bear in mind that I'm your godfather, or the next best thing."

Ichigo just sat down where he had been standing and put his head in his hands. So his dad had made a deal with Urahara and . . . "I don't want to think about this," he said from behind his fingers.

"So when you said you had nothing to do with this earlier, you were lying in your fucking teeth?" Renji asked Urahara in tones of scientific enquiry.

Urahara considered. "Yes," he admitted.

"Right." Renji shrugged. "Don't worry, Shihouin-san, I'm not going to hit the bastard. I just wanted to get that straight."

"I wouldn't stop you if you did try to hit the bastard," Yoruichi said. "Just bear in mind that he spent a hundred years trying not to escalate the situation, and that Aizen Sousuke's gone and kicked matters into overdrive."

"But you knew as well, Yoruichi-san," Chad said.

Yoruichi twitched a shoulder. The wall she was leaning against was charred in the shape of her shoulderblades and lower back, like a misshapen butterfly. "Oh yes. I knew."

Ishida raised a hand. "If Ise-fukutaichou and Renji-san brought back a prisoner, shouldn't we try and get some information out of him before this goes any further? I mean, I do sympathise with Kurosaki-kun and everything . . ."

Ichigo glared up at Ishida.

"Good thinking, Ishida-kun," Urahara said. "Tessai, bring the prisoner in."

Orihime squirmed over to where Ichigo was sitting, and plopped down next to him, finding room to squeeze herself between Ise Nanao's legs and Renji's feet. "Don't worry, Kurosaki-kun," she whispered in Ichigo's ear. "I've seen your father's zanpakutou and it's _lots_ smaller than yours is."

"Thank you, Orihime," Ichigo whispered back, suddenly feeling much better.

Tessai brought in the captured Arrancar. He was so heavily loaded down with restraints that it was a miracle that he could walk. He leered in Renji's direction and for some reason licked his lips meaningfully.

Renji's hand fell to the hilt of his zanpakutou.

"Very well now," Urahara said cheerfully. "I'm afraid I don't know your name . . ."

"Szayel Apollo," the Arrancar said, shaking his hair back gracefully.

"Szayel Apollo. Very good. Now we'd like full details on what you know about Aizen Sousuke and his current plans and locations."

"And if I don't tell you?" Szayel said blandly.

Urahara waved the other shinigami in the room to hush before they could speak. He leaned forward, face shadowed. "I'm the previous Captain of Twelfth Division, Szayel. Does that mean anything to you?"

Szayel was silent for a moment. "And yet," he said, half to himself, "if I miscalculate . . ."

"Oh well. I quite agree that if Aizen wins, and we're all reduced to his minions, then naturally you will suffer a humiliating, intense, and extremely painful punishment." Urahara smiled. "But there is another solution, you know."

"There is?" Szayel said.

"Oh, absolutely. Tessai. Hold his head." Urahara rose to his feet, and took his cane by the neck, twisting it to draw out his zanpakutou. "Now, this fact may come as a surprise to you gentlemen and ladies present, but when a vampire drinks the blood of another vampire, it can cause an unexpected bonding reaction. In fact, this is how most vampires maintain control over the ones that they have created, by forcing them to drink their own blood as the last act of their life, or the first act of their undeath. In fact -- hold him still, Tessai, I don't care how much he squirms, and you might want to put your hands over your eyes for this bit, Orihime-chan -- yes, in fact, even when this blood is administered unwillingly," he sliced the blade across his wrist, letting blood run, "there will still be an unwilling reaction, since blood in itself tends to provoke an extreme and violent interest, not to say thirst . . ."

Ichigo looked away, but even so he flinched when Szayel's screams and curses turned into noises of gulping and swallowing.

"Now," Urahara said gently, "why don't you tell us, Szayel? And can you do something about my wrist, Orihime-chan?"

Orihime crawled forward to kneel next to Urahara and focus on his wrist, her face set with lip-biting detachment.

Ichigo looked at Szayel again. There were smears of blood around his mouth, and he looked as sick as Ichigo felt. "Damn you, Urahara Kisuke!" he cursed.

"Yes, yes. Take that bit as read. Do go on."

Big drops of sweat stood out on Szayel's forehead. He squirmed from side to side, but couldn't break loose from Tessai's grip. "Aizen-sama . . . has gone to Seireitai."

All of the shinigami shouted or exclaimed at that. Urahara waved his free hand at them (still holding a bloody Benihime) and they fell silent. "Go on," he said. "What else do you know?"

Szayel shuddered. "Tousen-sama and Ichimaru-sama went with him, and so did the little shinigami Kuchiki girl. The rest of us --" He broke off, gasping. "The rest -- of us -- were ordered to -- attack and delay you -- Ulquiorra had special orders to trigger the violent phase in you --"

"The fucker looks like he's about to throw up," Ikkaku said, unimpressed.

"He's suffering from conflict of orders," Urahara said, not taking his eyes off Szayel. "He can't obey both of us at once, both Aizen and myself, but he has to try. We're lucky to be getting this much information out of him. Go on, Szayel. What else."

Szayel shuddered in Tessai's grasp, bending backwards hard enough that it looked as if his spine was about to snap.

Urahara took a step forward. He held Benihime, still smeared with his own blood, in front of Szayel's face. "Go on," he said softly, confidingly. "Obey me, Szayel Apollo. What else."

Szayel's eyes fixed on the blade -- or rather, Ichigo realised, on the blood that marred its steel. His breath came harshly. "Aizen-sama --" He swallowed. "Aizen-sama went two days ago," he whispered.

There was a moment of silence, then all the shinigami were shouting at once, in varying degrees of profanity, but all of them insisting that they needed to be back at Seireitai right now. Ichigo found himself on his feet and yelling as well, grabbing for Urahara's shoulder in order to shake some sense into the man and get him to put up one of those fucking gates right now.

The outcry was silenced by a single long wailing scream from Szayel as Urahara ran his blade through the Arrancar. Szayel fell to dust in Tessai's arms, long drifts of dust that settled on the bigger man's bloodstained apron, and the chains that had held him rattled to the floor in an untidy heap.

"Right," Urahara said, wiping Benihime against his hakama before sheathing her. "Gentlemen, ladies, your attention. Yes, you need to be back at Soul Society now, but there is one thing you need to take with you."

"What's that?" Renji demanded. "Some shit of yours?"

"Not at all." Urahara turned to point at Orihime. "You need to take Inoue Orihime with you, or I'm afraid you won't have a chance."

* * *

Renji removed his hand from his zanpakutou hilt with a struggle. It was so tempting just to draw Zabimaru and get the hell out of there right now. Rukia was in Soul Society. _Aizen_ and crew were in Soul Society. "Okay, Urahara-san," he said with dangerous restraint. "I've got nothing against Inoue-san here, and she's very good at what she does, but we've got the whole damn Fourth Division back home --"

Surprisingly, it was Yumichika who interrupted. "I think he has a point, Abarai-fukutaichou."

Renji turned to look at him. Yumichika had been very quiet for the last while, sitting next to Ikkaku and acting like he didn't even _want_ to be seen. "What's his point, then?"

Yumichika lowered his eyes. "I think Inoue-san may be able to reverse the state of being a vampire."

That made Renji consider. There was, after all, Rukia to be thought of. And anyone else that Aizen might go biting when they got there. "You don't think Fourth could heal that?"

"They've tried before," Urahara said. "While they may have developed something in the meantime that can do the job -- well, I think you'd do better to take Orihime-chan with you."

Orihime raised one delicate hand, and Renji couldn't help thinking that tactic wouldn't do much good in an Eleventh Division internal meeting. "But -- I know I managed to fix Yumichika-san from what happened to him --"

"Huh?" Renji said, confused.

"I'll explain in a moment," Yumichika said casually, with the air of someone who planned to wriggle out of the question.

"-- but I couldn't fix you, Urahara-san. You said I'd just put you back to status quo, and even that took all the energy I had."

Urahara nodded. "That's quite true, Orihime-chan. However, you didn't know me before this happened. You could only revert me to the state at which you'd known me, I think; not a hundred years before. And beside that, I believe I may have a way to boost your power."

"Oh." Orihime looked relieved. "Have you got a cool wonder booster drug?"

"Not exactly." Urahara pushed his hat back on his head. "It's more that if you _are_ going to be dealing with Aizen Sousuke -- you are, I think?"

"Fuck yeah," Renji said, and the other shinigami nodded their agreement.

"Well. If you can get the Hougyoukou off him, among other things, it happens to be a power source of great potential. I'm sure that any kidou expert could work out how to tap it and feed the power to Orihime-chan here. Presto, no vampire problem."

Ise Nanao frowned. "That sounds too easy to be true," she said dubiously.

"Oi," Ichigo said. "Don't forget we've got to get the thing off Aizen first. Is that going to be easy?"

She shrugged. "The kidou aspects, I mean. Not that I ever had a chance to examine it -- but if it were that easy to draw energy from it, then there should have been far more potential reaction when it was inside Kuchiki Rukia's body -- unless the fact that it was inside the Tower of Penitence partially restrained it, in which case --"

Renji ignored her technical mumbo-jumbo muttering. "All right," he said. "In that case, some of us go now to take the news via the straight route, and the others follow with Inoue-san here through a gate as soon as Urahara-san can set one up. Ise, do you mind doing that? I'll leave Ikkaku with you as backup."

Ise Nanao nodded, breaking off from whatever it was she'd been trying to say. "Very well," she agreed. "But make sure Kyouraku-taichou gets an update on the situation, please."

"That won't work," Shihouin Yoruichi said. "No, it's a good plan, Abarai-kun, but we have another problem. I tried to send a Hell Butterfly to Soul Society ten minutes ago to give them an update on the situation."

"Who's them?" Ichigo interrupted.

"Soi Fong," Shihouin Yoruichi said. "We agreed last time I was there that we really should stay in contact." She smiled, flashing sharp white teeth. "But there's a problem with communications. The butterfly couldn't get through. We've got turbulence on a psychic level which is fouling all communications, and that means that ordinary passage is going to be down as well. Kisuke's going to have to set up a Gate for all of us -- it's the only way that we'll be able to punch through."

Ikkaku grunted. "The timing on this is real coincidental."

"Do you expect anything else?" Shihouin Yoruichi demanded.

Kurosaki Isshin and Urahara exchanged glances for a moment, then Kurosaki Isshin said, "I won't be coming, either."

"Huh?" Ichigo ejaculated. "You're needed, old man. Don't tell me you're going to back out _now_."

Kurosaki Isshin sighed. "Think, idiot son. If you were Aizen and you wanted to keep us pinned down here and stop us from going to Seireitai, how would you do it?"

"Easy," Ichigo said at once. "I'd send loads of vampire maniac Hollows to attack Karakura . . . oh." He came to a stop. "Bugger," he finally said.

"Precisely," Kurosaki Isshin said. "Kisuke, how long will you need to set up the Gate?"

"An hour, with Tessai's help," Urahara answered. "Which I'll have now, I think. Ladies, gentlemen, sit back and get your breath back. We have work to do." He gestured Tessai to accompany him outside.

Renji sighed and sat down again. "I guess we have to wait," he said to Ise Nanao.

She adjusted her glasses with a precision which suggested intense restrained violence. "I believe we do," she agreed.

* * *

Tatsuki scowled ferociously at her knees. She was afraid that if she looked at Orihime, then she would start hitting someone -- Mr Vampire for preference, but feather-head for seconds, and Ichigo in any case -- and that wouldn't help. Wouldn't help in general, that is; it would certainly help her feelings. "I understand what you're saying," she said. "That doesn't mean I like it."

Orihime squeezed the arm that she'd put round Tatsuki's shoulders. "I don't like it either," she said. The usual enthusiasm was gone from her voice. "I want you to come."

"I know."

"But Kurosaki-san says he wants you here."

"I know." It had been quite a convincing speech, about how Tatsuki would be able to _help_ him, and that he needed the help, with everyone else going off to Soul Society, and that . . . whatever. Tatsuki figured it was fifty per cent that, fifty per cent them not wanting her going to Soul Society and trailing round after them. "He said."

"And all of them will be looking after me." Orihime gestured at the shinigami in their black clothing, who were occupying the time by arguing with each other. "And Ishida-kun, too. And Kurosaki-kun."

Tatsuki sniffed.

"And you know I'll come back," Orihime finished. "I promise."

"I trust you," Tatsuki said to her knees. "And I promise I'll be waiting."

"All right!" Urahara appeared in the doorway, brandishing his cane. "The Gate is ready to be activated. Everyone in the yard now, please!"

Tatsuki got up and followed Orihime out with the others. She was aware that Kurosaki Isshin was giving her sidelong glances, no doubt worried that she'd try jumping through and running after Orihime. Let him worry. She had one more thing to do.

She marched up to Ichigo and grabbed him by the collar. "You," she said. "Don't go and do something stupid and get Orihime worried. Right?"

He met her eyes, honest with her for the first time in a while. She remembered how he'd avoided her ever since things had begun to happen, ever since they'd gone running off to Soul Society for the first time. And maybe she could understand it, but that didn't make it right.

"I'm not stupid," he snapped at her, and she knew that was the closest thing to an apology or a promise that she'd get.

"Right," she said, and let go of him. She stepped back to stand next to Kurosaki Isshin, watching Orihime, watching all of them.

The structure of the Gate, a huge blocky rectangular outline, began to flare in different shades of light. Urahara recited something and tapped his cane against it, and it rang like a temple bell before settling into a regular brilliance. The centre of it shifted to blackness, an open hole in time and space.

"Now," Urahara said.

Shihouin Yoruichi was first through the gate, with the red-headed shinigami and the two Eleventh Division ones a step behind her. Orihime turned to raise a hand in farewell before she ran through it with Ichigo at her side, with Chad and Ishida behind them, and the female shinigami with glasses at the end.

The Gate blazed one last moment, then settled into darkness again.

Kurosaki Isshin patted her shoulder. He didn't try to say anything. He nodded, and that was all.


	9. Chapter Nine

**REQUIEM**

**CHAPTER NINE**

And night fell across Seireitai.

* * *

"Wake up," a half-remembered voice said.

Byakuya opened his eyes. His memories of the day were hazy, like something seen through thin gauze. He'd been tired, so very tired. He'd thought about going to Fourth Division in case he was coming down with a fever, but something -- something he couldn't quite put his finger on -- had made him decide against it. And all he could remember from the nights before were the long dreams of following Hisana down pale corridors until at last he could take her in his arms and she --

Wakefulness hit him like cold water. He looked up into the moonlight, then across at the man sitting beside him. Aizen Sousuke. And Rukia was there too. Rukia was pale and thin and looking at him with such hopeless eyes that he wanted to reach out and comfort her.

He was so hungry.

But there was something about Aizen Sousuke that he should remember.

He licked his lips. There was a hot wetness on them that soothed him and somehow steadied him. Yes. That was it. Aizen Sousuke was

_a traitor and a murderer and a criminal and the one who had hurt his sister_

his master. He had to do what Aizen said and everything would be all right.

If he did what Aizen said then perhaps this hunger would go away and he could think more clearly.

"That's right, Byakuya-kun," Aizen said, his voice comforting. "You obey me."

"Yes, master," Byakuya said, and couldn't understand what it was inside him that screamed at those words.

"Go out there," Aizen said, "and take your little sister with you. There will be people coming from the Shiba house -- your Renji and others. Take them, feed from them. Then do as you wish." He released his grip on Rukia's shoulder, letting her move across to kneel beside Byakuya.

Byakuya nodded. "Yes. I need to find Renji . . ." Renji was so warm, like flames, like a bonfire. He could warm himself on Renji. He could appease this dreadful hunger. Everything would be clearer then.

"Go on," Aizen said, voice warm and confiding, and he smiled as he watched Byakuya and Rukia leave the room.

* * *

"You know," Ichigo said to Renji, "we could be overestimating the size of the problem here."

"Huh?" Renji said. They were waiting outside the Shiba house. Shihouin Yoruichi had insisted that they stop here to check for any news; she'd reluctantly let Nanao and Ikkaku go on ahead to get the information to the Captains as fast as possible, but had wanted to keep the others with her, muttering something about general panic and not trusting anyone these days.

"Well, look. Suppose Aizen and his lot got here in secret. They'd have to be feeding off people to stay alive -- undead -- whatever. Right?"

"Right," Renji agreed. He thought he could see where Ichigo was going with this one.

"And Urahara said that they'd want powerful blood. Captain-level. But we haven't had reports of Captains turning into vampires, have we? I mean, it's been a couple of days. They'd have sent a message to tell you if anyone had gone missing."

"That's true," Chad agreed. "Or if any of the Captains had suddenly started staying out of the sunlight and not coming out except by night."

"Right," Ishida said. "Or having raving bloodlust -- um, like those books. You know," he said descriptively, with a wave of the hand at the marks still on Renji's neck.

Renji tugged at his collar. "Right," he agreed. "That sort of thing would be just too obvious. No, what I figure is that they came to hide out here in Soul Society because it was the _last_ place we'd look for them."

"Well, it was the last place we looked!" Orihime put in.

The door creaked open. A big servant stood there, holding it for them. "Please . . . come in," he grunted. "The mistress is anxious to see you."

"Right," Renji said. He let Shihouin Yoruichi go in first, then pushed after her, dragging Ichigo and Orihime along with him. The sooner they got this done, the sooner he could go and report to Kuchiki-taichou, and the sooner they could find Rukia and get this all sorted out.

"It's rather dark in here," Ishida said as he followed, with Chad and Yumichika trailing behind. "What happened to that luminous moss stuff?"

"Moss?" Yumichika sniffed. "That hardly sounds very aesthetic."

"Temporary failure," the servant droned. "Please go on in. Straight down the stairs . . ."

"What?" Yoruichi said, turning around. "Why isn't Kuukaku meeting us in the usual place --"

"Stone Wave!" at least two people shouted from different directions, and the corridor came apart under Renji's feet, dropping him and the others into a morass of sands below.

* * *

Matsumoto Rangiku woke in a tumble of unruly hair and a loose collapse of clothing. The couch cushions were cold against her cheek, but as she pushed the hair back from her face, it struck her how cold, how very cold her own hands were.

And how hungry she was.

Gin was kneeling beside the couch; he'd come back to her, everything was all right here in the moonlight, and now she didn't have to worry any more. His presence soothed her like a cool hand stroking a fractious cat, and his hand on her lips was full of blood, and somehow it seemed right, so right to drink it. It warmed her, heart and body.

"There you are," he murmured to her. "You're all mine now, Rangiku-chan, aren't ya?"

She whispered assent.

"Don't worry," he said. "I know you're all confused, but just relax and I'll tell you what to do."

The blood on her lips made her agree.

_this is wrong_

"Now you just need to go out and find your Captain. He'll do for a start. Won't he?"

_Hitsugaya-taichou, help me_

"And then ya can both come back and we'll go find some more people and you won't feel so hungry no more."

Yes, he'd give her food, Gin always gave her food, and it would staunch this terrible craving, and then she'd know what to think. Because there was something that she should remember, there really was something that she should remember about Gin, but the moon was shining on him and she had to find her Captain.

* * *

Yumichika caught himself halfway down, balancing between half-dissolved paving-stones as he lightly stepped down to the floor below, and lending a hand to Yasutora Sado on the way. It wasn't the boy's fault that he couldn't flash step, after all.

The mode of attack was regrettably familiar. Shiba Ganju had used it on him earlier, and Yumichika now considered himself an expert on the subject. However, the timing and location of the attack were very disturbing. It had been timed to catch them unawares and handicap them with the members of the group who couldn't deal with this sort of fall.

Yumichika glanced around quickly. A large cavern of some sort. Lots of stalagmites. Lots of falling sand. Shihouin Yoruichi was supporting Orihime, while Kurosaki and Abarai-fukutaichou and the Quincy all seemed able to manage their own descent. The dim light and sand made it difficult to pinpoint any enemies, but --

A cold arm slid round his neck from behind, while a large hand immobilised his wrist. "Hold it right there," Shiba Ganju grunted in his ear. "You think you're so clever, chasing me around and laughing at me, but tonight, you degenerate, you're going to be --"

Yasutora's armoured fist took Shiba Ganju in the face and broke his nose, and also loosened his grip on Yumichika enough for Yumichika to wrench himself free and draw his zanpakutou.

"I think not," Yumichika said with what he hoped was icy calm. His free hand flailed at his cowl, trying to pull it back into its usual state of perfect elegance. He suspected that Ganju had _mussed_ it. "And if you think this is some sort of joke --"

Ganju hissed at them. He had fangs.

"Don't hurt him!" Yasutora interjected. "Orihime can heal him!"

"Really," Yumichika said coldly, "it makes a fight much less entertaining when one is under the burden of not hurting an opponent. However, since it is so utterly dismal a mismatch . . ."

The stalagmite next to him blew up in a swirl of sand, and it was (totally unfairly) during the moment when he was choking and trying to get the sand out of his eyes that Shiba Ganju attacked again.

* * *

Hiromasa Shinji of the Seventh Division was an average shinigami who had lived an average life and was in the process of making a career for himself as an average member of the Gotei 13. Recent events had done nothing to change his plans for the future.

It was with great relief that he saw one of his friends come staggering in through the main Division gate, a group of others behind him. The other man had gone missing with his entire patrol two days ago. The assumption had been Hollow attack: Hiromasa could only assume that they'd been injured and only just made it back, from the way that they were moving.

"Karuma!" he said, running to grab the other man's shoulder. "Are you all right? What happened?"

Karuma looked at him, eyes dreamy and unfocused and dark. "So thirsty," he mumbled.

"Quick!" Hiromasa turned away to wave an order at one of the juniors. "Fetch water --"

Karuma fastened his teeth in Hiromasa's neck.

The last thing that Hiromasa remembered was the screams. Not just him. People screaming all around him.

* * *

Yoruichi landed on the balls of her feet and dropped Orihime to the ground behind her. "Stay down," she ordered the girl, turning to flash a glance across the room.

No immediate casualties: everyone was still combat-capable. Shiba Ganju was engaging Ayasegawa and Chad. Some of the household servants were moving towards Abarai and Ichigo and Ishida. No sign of Kuukaku.

It was a nicely executed little ambush, Yoruichi had to admit. Aizen had noted their previous route, and left a handful of vampires to slow them down and damage morale. Kuukaku herself, assuming she was in charge here, had chosen a good moment to strike and a place to do it where she and Ganju could use kidou, and where the shinigami were hampered in their use of flash step and manuverability. The darkness and blowing sand made it difficult to see clearly.

Fortunately, Tousen Kaname wasn't the only one who could fight blind.

"Shield yourself," Yoruichi ordered Orihime. The girl complied quickly. "Hold that shield; keep it up even if you have to break cover; stay down and let the rest of us immobilise them so you can heal them."

Orihime nodded.

Yoruichi ripped a strip of cloth from her sleeve, and wound it round her eyes, knotting it behind her head, and then tasted the air for reiatsu. It was easy enough to spot Ichigo, and Renji and Ishida with him. The servants were minimal and could be discounted. Ganju and his opponents formed another group.

Which meant that the bright flare of reiatsu to her right must be Kuukaku.

With a vicious smirk to her lips, Yoruichi darted to her right in a streak of movement that burned the air in its passing, and pounced like a cat.

* * *

Nemu had been sleeping in the laboratory lately. Mayuri-sama didn't complain; if anything, she thought that it might please him, that she was so dedicated to her work. And that in turn pleased her, let her curl up at night around the knowledge that she was functioning well and efficiently.

She thought that Tousen came in the night, as well, but she kept her eyes closed so that she would not see him. If she did not see him, she reassured herself, then she was not committing any offenses, she was not disobeying Mayuri-sama. She was asleep. The words that the darkness whispered were only words; the darkness was a friend, hiding her from the laboratory lights and letting her dream for a little while.

This time when she woke, Tousen was there, and there was a taste in her mouth that was better than anything she had ever had before. Her father had given her many sorts of food which he had painstakingly calibrated as a perfect diet for her metabolism, but somehow the salty richness in her mouth satisfied her more than any of them ever had. It eased the gnawing hunger in her stomach, just for a moment.

Tousen stroked the hair away from her face in a gesture that was almost like kindness. "There," he said. "You know what to do, Nemu."

She did. She knew precisely what to do. She had to improve the others in the Division. She had to improve Mayuri-sama. She had to make them just like her. Everything would be all right then, and Mayuri-sama would tell her _well done_.

"I will go and find Mayuri-sama," she said, and Tousen nodded.

* * *

"This is awkward," Ishida said over his shoulder, almost conversationally. "I don't want to fire directly at those guys --" He fired an arrow into the floor in front of some of the servants, making them scatter backwards. "-- because I might hurt them badly if I do."

"Yeah," Ichigo grunted. He whacked one of the twin giants with the back of Zangetsu, knocking him off his feet. "I feel your pain. Hey, Renji! Do some kidou and trap this lot!"

Renji muttered something inaudible.

"Huh?"

"I don't know that sort of kidou real well," Renji said, more loudly. He whipped Zabimaru in a wide half-circle, clearing the area in front of him. The three of them were back to back, holding off a whole mass of Shiba family servants.

"But we can't _kill_ these guys!" Ichigo kicked one of them in the throat as the man tried to grab for his knees. "Inoue! Can you heal them?"

Inoue waved from where she was standing behind her shield. "Ichigo! Can you get them all together?"

"You go to their left," Renji said, "I'll go to their right, the Quincy keeps firing arrows above and behind them, we pen them in. Right?"

Ichigo nodded. He glanced back to see Ishida nodding as well.

They moved together, as smoothly as if they had practiced it, and Orihime's healing shield came floating down over the herded group of servants like a benediction.

* * *

Kyouraku Shunsui woke to a dreadful weariness, and a dryness in his throat, and an ache in his head and limbs that was worse than the worst hangover he could remember for the last few hundred years. It was early evening, with the clouds outside racing past the moon and a sharp wind in the air, and Aizen Sousuke was standing beside his sofa.

He came upright in a smooth motion that ignored dissipation or headache, reaching out towards his zanpakutou in their stand. The wind toyed with their cords and rattled the papers on his desk, stacked up these last two days for the want of Nanao-chan to sort them out.

"You can't do it, you know," Aizen said.

And Shunsui couldn't. Hunger was a haze in him, more confusing than drunkenness had ever been.

"We always do underestimate you, don't we, Sousuke-kun?" he said casually, trying to gather enough focus to move.

"Oh, you do. But I never underestimated you." Aizen raised his fingers to his mouth, lips dark in the pale moonlight. "You were -- better than I could have imagined. Powerful blood is a taste that is hard to put down. I must make sure that Gin is careful in his drinking. I wouldn't like him to get a taste for it."

"Well, that's a Captain's job," Shunsui said vaguely. "Providing proper guidance to one's subordinates, guiding them, considering their aspirations, discipline . . ." He could hear the distant sounds of the Division. If someone came in, Aizen would kill them before they could get out an alarm. He needed his Nanao-chan. He needed Jyuushiro. He needed . . .

"Yes," Aizen said pleasantly. "But by the blood that I've drunk and the blood that I've given you, Kyouraku Shunsui, I now own your will. Don't think too harshly of me. It could have been a great deal worse."

Something in Shunsui knew what Aizen meant. The part of him that ached and thirsted, the hunger that was growing in him like a cancerous pain, the very thought of blood -- "Whether it's blood from the throat or a sword to the heart," he said sharply, "your ends justify nothing."

"No?" Aizen said. "Seireitai is in my hand. It doesn't know it yet."

"You can't have done this . . ." Shunsui's fingers touched his throat, against his will. There were no marks there. ". . . to all the Captains. People would have noticed."

"It was easy enough to hide in a few of you." Aizen walked towards the window, turning his back on Shunsui, and Shunsui would have cut him down without hesitation a thousand times over, if only he could have moved. "And tonight, it all comes out. The shinigami I have turned over the last few days, have risen tonight and come out to attack their fellows and make them vampires as well. The captains and vice-captains who have been food for me and for my friends the last few nights have seen their last sunlight. Like you. When chaos takes the city tonight, there will be no dawn."

"You do enjoy turning us against each other," Shunsui said. The words were sparse enough. His anger was burning in him so strongly that he could hear the voices of his zanpakutou screaming hurricanes at the back of his mind; storms, typhoons, siroccos, lashes of burning wind that could tear flesh from bone. He could not fault Aizen's strategy; it was all too possible, depending on who else might be under his control or running wild, and salted with a few of the man's illusions, it could bring what was left of the Gotei 13 down and destroy all those who they protected.

Aizen graciously inclined his head. "I do. Don't you appreciate the elegance, Kyouraku Shunsui?"

"I appreciate that the Menos Grandes were right when they recognised you as a thing like them," Shunsui said between his teeth.

Aizen turned back to look at Shunsui, still smiling. There was something inhuman about his perfection, white robes and pale skin and a face like a bodhisattva meditating to the sound of screams. "As you wish. In any case, you are hungry, aren't you? Don't bother denying it. The more powerful you are, the more powerful blood you need. I have the same problem. The common shinigami or seated officers are barely a drop of water against the thirst."

Shunsui shook his head, once. He would not give Aizen an ounce of agreement, true or not. But the hunger was there in him, worse with every moment, making it harder and harder to think clearly. He might be able to resist a little longer, but he could feel clarity slipping away.

"Find Jyuushirou." Aizen leaned closer. There was no odour to him; not sweat, not blood, not wine, nothing at all, no smell of death or life. "Find him. You'll know what to do."

The wave of hunger that came with the words knocked Shunsui back, making his hands shake as he fought for control. "No," he said. _No._

"The hunger will drive you out very soon in any case." Aizen turned back to the window again. "You will do as I command, and neither honour nor affection nor hope will stop you. You may as well go while you can still think."

He vanished in a blur of shadows, leaving Shunsui staring at the window and the cold white moon.

Shunsui shut his eyes. It didn't help. He still saw Jyuushirou and still tasted blood, and the ache in him would not be stilled by any effort of his will.

He could not.

_You will_, Aizen's voice said in his memory, and he fought against it, second after second, and he could feel himself losing.

* * *

Orihime wiped sweat from her forehead. It hadn't been as difficult to restore the Shiba servants as it had been to heal Urahara, but it still wasn't easy.

"Inoue-san!" a voice called. She turned to see Yumichika and Chad hauling an unconscious Shiba Ganju towards her.

Orihime clapped her hands together in delight. "Oh, well done! And you did it so neatly! He's not bleeding or anything."

"Yeah. How did you do it?" Renji asked curiously.

Yumichika tossed his head, brushed back his hair, and smiled in a glitter of teeth as he folded the blades of his zanpakutou back together. "Oh, I just dealt with him."

Chad glanced at the back of Yumichika's head, grunted, and didn't say anything else.

"Right," Yoruichi said. She had an unconscious Shiba Kuukaku over her shoulder. "Fix both these two, and then let's find out what happened here."

"Isn't it obvious?" Ishida said. "Aizen worked out that we'd be coming this way and he set it up as a trap."

"Basically correct," Yoruichi agreed, "but there are a few other points. How did he know when we'd be coming? How did he or his vampires get inside the house? What's been going on elsewhere in Seireitai?"

* * *

Ikkaku stood in front of Zaraki-taichou, trying not to scratch his chest. Sure, pretty Inoue-chan said she'd healed him and stuff, but it still itched.

Zaraki grunted thoughtfully. "So. Vampires. Aizen. Attack any minute."

"Pretty much it, sir," Ikkaku agreed.

"But you reckon that the Inoue girl can fix people if they've been bitten."

Ikkaku nodded. "Her healing's different from Fourth's. We think she can restore them to how they used to be."

"All right." Zaraki rose to his feet in a landslide of muscle. "Give orders that if we see any morons trying to drink blood, they're to be knocked unconscious and tied up so that she can do her thing on them. And if anyone spots any of those three bastards who are behind it all . . ." He smiled, his scars turning his face into the relief map of a particularly rocky mountainside. "Someone call me."

"Sir!" A low-ranking shinigami came running in, throwing the door open without even knocking first. "Sir! We're being attacked by other shinigami and they're trying to bite us and so far two of the men are down --"

"What the hell do you call this?" Zaraki roared. The force of the shout and the accompanying blast of reiatsu made the shinigami flinch, and rattled the hangings on the walls. "You're Eleventh, aren't you? Go take those bastards down! Ikkaku! Take Yachiru and a squad, go round the Division borders, make sure we're secure on all sides, check with the patrols, get ready for an excursion! You!" He grabbed the trembling shinigami by his collar, lifting him off his feet. "Come with me!"

"It'd be easier if you put him down first, Ken-chan," Yachiru pointed out.

"Oh. Yeah. You!" He dropped the shinigami. "Come with me!"

At least, Ikkaku reflected, everything was normal round here.

* * *

Everyone had relocated to the better-lit rooms upstairs. Shiba Kuukaku was holding audience in her lounge, and had already broken one pipe; her hand wouldn't stop shaking, and she needed something to hold onto so that it wouldn't show. She didn't approve of weakness at the best of times.

"Yes." She took a second pipe from Ganju, filled and lit, and breathed in a long lungful of smoke. It steadied her a little. "It was Kuchiki Rukia. Though if they'd done to her what they did to us, I'm not blaming her. Hell. Look, Yoruichi, I'm sorry --"

Yoruichi shook her head. "Don't worry. It's because they knew we'd come to you that they targeted you. If anything, I should be apologising --"

"Don't bother," Kuukaku snapped. All this sympathy was getting on her nerves. "It was simple enough. Last night, the Kuchiki girl shows up knocking on the door, looking pathetic and helpless. So of course the two morons," she nodded at Shiroganehiko and Koganehiko, "let her in. And next thing they knew, Ichimaru Gin was sauntering in behind her. He took them down at once. I heard the screams and crashes, and came out to find out what was going on, and then . . ." She didn't want to frame the rest of it in words. "Then we woke up afterwards. Ichimaru Gin was there. It seemed . . . sensible, to do what he said. I couldn't think about other things. Just what he said, and being -- thirsty. That's why I'm not blaming Kuchiki." She glanced at Kurosaki and Abarai, who were both avoiding looking at her. "You hear that, morons? And if I can't blame her, you sure as hell can't."

Kurosaki frowned. "Seriously? You couldn't resist what he said?"

Kuukaku thought about breaking her pipe over his head, but that would just mean that Ganju would have to fetch a third one, and it was hardly fair to make Ganju suffer for Kurosaki's stupidity. "You think that I'd have attacked you like that if I had any choice in the matter? Or are you saying that I _wanted_ to do what he said?"

Kurosaki waved his hands frantically. "No no no. Nothing like that, Shiba-san. It's just that -- well, you're very strong-willed."

Out of the corner of her eye, Kuukaku saw Ganju nodding in agreement at that.

"Even Ganju is," Kurosaki added.

"What do you mean, _even_ Ganju?" her little brother growled.

Kuukaku cut him off with a gesture. "You're thinking that it should have been possible to resist. Right?"

"That'd be like telling a Hollow not to be hungry," Yoruichi said. "As far as Kisuke knows, and he is the expert in this area, to his shame, a new vampire has only two things on his mind. Blood and obedience. And if he drinks some blood from another vampire, then he's even more conditioned to follow their orders. If he doesn't get any blood, then the hunger gets worse, until he just attacks anything that comes near. A vampire who's been able to feed and restore his sanity a bit might be able to resist to some extent, but . . ." She shrugged. "I don't think he'd let Kuchiki Rukia feed if there was a chance she could break free."

"But at least we can heal her," Abarai said. He waved a hand at Kuukaku and Ganju. "Now we know that Inoue can do the job."

Inoue Orihime dimpled, looked up, looked down, and scuffed the tatami matting with her toe. "I was glad to be of assistance," she said shyly.

"You did a good job, girl," Kuukaku congratulated her. Credit where credit was due. "We owe you one."

"Thank you," Inoue Orihime said, and blushed even more.

"Right." Kuukaku turned to Yoruichi. "You'll be wanting to go into Seireitai. I'll see to it that the outer districts round here are roused and defended. Torches, light, patrols, all the emergency measures. We won't be able to stop Aizen, but we can spread the word."

Yoruichi nodded. "Thank you," she said. "I'll bring Kuchiki by, afterwards. I'm sure she'll want to apologise."

"Yes, she's a little idiot that way," Kuukaku agreed. "And now you'd better be on your way. There's hours of night yet to go."

* * *

Nanao came in to Seireitai at a run, past the gatekeeper with barely a greeting and on to her own Division. She'd passed some brawls and shouting, but hadn't bothered to even glance over her shoulder at them. There wasn't _time_ for that. Other seated officers could sort the problem out, and she wished them joy of it.

The clouds were moving across the sky too fast for comfort, driven by a biting cold wind that snatched at her sleeves and chilled her hands. There was an edge to it that she didn't like.

The Division was quiet. She passed a couple of the junior officers with only a brief nod, and stepped into her Captain's office without even bothering to knock. He should be up by now, and he would either be here or with Ukitake-taichou, and if he wasn't here, then --

He was a shadow by the window, head bowed, hands fisted on the windowsill. "Nanao-chan," he said, his voice a whisper, almost a warning.

The room was full of his reiatsu, barely leashed. It prickled against her skin like a rising storm. "Kyouraku-taichou?" she said. "I'm here --"

"Nanao-chan," he said again, and then he was holding her, and then there was darkness, and it was so quick that she didn't even have time to feel the pain.

* * *

Outside the Shiba mansion, the wind ran through the long grass in long whistling strokes, combing it through and through in a constant susurrus that echoed behind any speech or movement.

Yoruichi carried Orihime, while Ichigo and Renji supported Chad between them, Ishida kept up through some sort of weird Quincy technique, and Yumichika played rearguard. They didn't talk, which was fair enough; it gave Ichigo time to think. The Shiba business suggested that Aizen was still one step ahead of them. Maybe he'd already skewed things so that when they got to Seireitai they'd find they'd been framed for murder (again) or worse, or that he'd . . . actually, Ichigo wasn't sure what Aizen could do. The only consoling thing was that Yuzu and Karin were safe at home, and that his moron of a father was looking after them with Tatsuki's help. That was a single point of comfort.

Yoruichi came to an abrupt stop, mid-pace; the others halted with varying degrees of neatness and a bit of muttered cursing, falling silent as she raised a hand to point ahead. Two black-robed figures were approaching, rushing towards them. Kuchiki Byakuya.

And Rukia.

Ichigo thought for a moment that everything was all right, that Byakuya had somehow got things under control, though he had absolutely no idea how (Captain of Sixth Division he might be, but Ichigo somehow didn't see him as vampire hunter or slayer of Aizen), and that Rukia was fine and now he could get back to kicking her scrawny ass for worrying him like this, and then he saw her eyes. They were like dark holes in her face. She wasn't thin, she wasn't even scrawny; she was pared to the bone and burning up inside with it, and she looked at him as if she barely even recognised him.

"Renji," Byakuya said, and stepped forward. The cold wind hissed about him and dragged at his scarf and hair. The moonlight glinted on his fangs.

--


	10. Chapter Ten

**REQUIEM**

**CHAPTER TEN**

"Renji?" Kuchiki Byakuya said. His tone of voice was so dismissive, so casual, so utterly _normal_ that for a moment Renji could believe that things were as they should be and that the glimpse of fangs had been nothing but his imagination. And maybe it did mean something. Maybe Kuchiki-taichou was more or less sane, and they could talk him into standing there till Orihime could fix him.

"Yeah, Captain," Renji said. He took a step forward. "We've got things under control."

Kuchiki-taichou frowned. "I was not aware that anything was out of control," he said. The wind played with the end of his sash. "I need to talk to you. There is . . ." He shook his head, as if he was trying to recollect something. "We need to talk. In private."

There was something in the dark hunger that filled Kuchiki-taichou's eyes at those words which went to somewhere in Renji's stomach, and simultaneously knotted his guts and weakened his knees. To be looked at like that, as if he was so important, so _necessary_ to Kuchiki-taichou . . .

"Don't be a damn moron," Kurosaki said, grabbing Renji's shoulder. "You're not going anywhere private with him now he's a vampire."

"The Kurosaki brat," Kuchiki-taichou said. His hand fell to the hilt of his zanpakutou. "You again. Here. Trespassing. Disturbing. Threatening my sister --"

"She's been turned into a vampire, you moron!" Kurosaki yelled. "What the hell happened to you protecting her? Can't you see that she needs help, that you need help too?"

Kuchiki-taichou drew his sword in a single motion, holding it before his face in a dreadfully familiar posture. "Scatter --" he began.

"No!" Renji could imagine the lethal wave of blossoms striking across the field. He could dodge, sure, and so could Shihouin Yoruichi and Kurosaki and Yumichika, but he wouldn't give two yen for the others' chances. He desperately grabbed at the collar of his jacket, yanking it down to show the bite marks left by the other vampire. "Captain! Look here!"

"Keep his attention," Shihouin Yoruichi said in a soft mutter. "Ayasegawa, take Sado and Ishida, go on to Seiretai. We'll finish handling things here."

Out of the corner of his eye, Renji caught Yumichika's nod, and saw him vanish with the two other men. He'd have preferred it if they could have taken Orihime too, but she was needed here to fix his Captain.

"Renji," Kuchiki-taichou said, in a deep tone that went right to Renji's knees. "Come here."

Slowly, with halting steps, Renji approached his Captain.

--

"What the hell?" Ichigo decided that Renji must have been hypnotised. This must be part of the whole vampire powers shit and Urahara hadn't bothered to mention it or something. The whole glazed eyes, shuddering, ripping his clothes off, staggering towards Byakuya . . . well, so he'd just have to deal with Byakuya (he'd already done it once before, how hard could it be to do it again?) and accept Renji's apologies afterwards. Yeah. Something like that. He couldn't understand why Yoruichi wasn't already taking Byakuya down. She'd messed with him that time before and totally outrun him, after all. All this kid gloves treatment and trying to talk them down wasn't going to work.

"Ichigo?" a plaintive little voice said next to him.

Ichigo nearly jumped out of his skin. All his attention had been on Kuchiki Byakuya. He'd forgotten about Rukia: forgotten her entirely enough that she'd managed to get right up close to him.

She looked up at him with huge dark liquid eyes. She was so small. It was hard to think of her as his elder when she was like this; she was as tiny as Yuzu or Karin, and she needed protection so badly. Everyone was against her. Her brother. Her friends. Everyone. He was the only one who could protect her.

"Idiot," he said, and ruffled her hair. "Stay close to me now till we get this sorted out."

She nodded submissively (and why wasn't she snapping at him or calling him a fool, a part of his mind vaguely wondered but didn't quite get round to making itself heard) and pressed herself against his side (and she was so cold, there was something that he should have remembered about letting her get close to him, but she was Rukia and she was one of the most important people in his life, and . . .)

. . . and she was so cold.

And, Ichigo realised as he felt her hand brush his collar, she was right inside his guard.

And her hands were like skeletal pieces of ice as she forced his arm down and as she hooked her free arm round his neck and she got her teeth into his throat.

And Zangetsu was a thousand miles away and it was so dark and Rukia was there but Rukia was wrong and he couldn't think properly and it was so cold.

--

Nanao woke without hesitation or blurriness, with the simple opening of her eyes. There was a strange lassitude to her body: not the weariness of fighting or running, but a kind of complete relaxation that kept her still and calm. She was lying on the sofa in her Captain's office, her head in his lap. The moonlight came spilling in through the window, broken by the moving shadows of clouds, and as she looked up at him she could see despair in his face.

"Kyouraku-taichou," she said softly.

She was so hungry. She knew what it had to mean about her and what it had to imply about her Captain, and the implications spread outwards from that, but something stopped her from being afraid.

"Nanao-chan," he said. "I am so sorry. So very sorry."

"It wasn't . . ." The words turned to ash in her throat. She wanted to say _it wasn't your fault_, but it had to be someone's fault, and couldn't he have stopped himself, just for that one moment? Couldn't he have done _something_? "It was Aizen," she finally said. "It wasn't you. Not really."

He brushed a strand of hair away from her face. "My Nanao-chan is more forgiving than I deserve." She could sense the tension in his hands and body. "And now I have some last orders for her."

"I can't leave you now!" she burst out.

"You can. I order you to." He slid a hand under her shoulder. "Nanao-chan, Sousuke has told me to do something and I cannot fight it very much longer. Only the fact that you were here, that your blood --" He broke off. "Only you have let me hold on for so long. Listen. Sousuke's plan is to turn some of the Captains and Vice-Captains to vampires, as he has done with me, and then to set them on each other. He has also turned some of the younger shinigami, and will make them attack each other and run wild in Seireitai. It will be chaos. Yama-jii needs to establish order and set up quarantines, lock everyone down sector by sector. If we can hold out till dawn, then the vampires won't be able to abide the sunlight, and he can finish the job."

_Some of the Captains and Vice-Captains . . ._ "Who else?" Nanao demanded.

Kyouraku-taichou sighed. "He didn't tell me. The only one I know that hasn't been affected is Jyuushirou, and that's because . . ." He bowed his head. "Because Sousuke told me to find him."

The simple elegance and cruelty of it twisted in Nanao's stomach. She rolled sideways, curling up around the hurt and the hunger in her guts as if she could block it away.

"Nanao." Her Captain's hand tightened on her shoulder. "Sousuke didn't think it through. I don't think he can control you. I . . . did this to you. So I'm the one who has authority over you."

"You always were, sir," she whispered.

He squeezed her shoulder. "Here are my orders. You will control your hunger. You _can_ control your hunger. You won't listen to anything that Sousuke tells you. Get to Yama-jii, give him a report, follow his orders. And --" He took a deep breath. "Don't come near me again unless there is something that you must do."

She was able to look up at him again, but the words _something that you must do_ nearly broke her resolve. "I understand, sir," she forced out. "I will obey. But --"

"But?" he said, touching her hair again.

"But there --" She was going to say, _there is a cure_, but memory cut in. If he met Aizen Sousuke again, could he be forced to tell about the possibility? About Inoue Orihime? The only hope, the best hope, was that he not know at all. And he must realise that himself. "But there is a chance," she finally said. "For both of us."

"Pray it comes quickly," her Captain said. "And now you must go. I'll stay here, Nanao-chan. As long as I can."

His hand shook as he stroked her hair, her neck, her shoulder. "Go," he said, and there was a desperation in his voice that she had never heard there before, and which set her running out into the streets faster than she had thought she could go.

--

Hitsugaya pushed open the door angrily. It rattled back on its rails to slam against the wall.

"Matsumoto!" he yelled, looking round the office. He knew that she'd been off-colour the last few days, but he'd put it down to a combination of alcohol and worrying about Ichimaru Gin. (The idiot.) But he had faith that she'd respond in an emergency, however many bottles she had to drag herself out of. And this was certainly an emergency. There were mobs running wild across Seireitai, some sort of wild stories about blood-drinking maniacs, the weather was appalling, other Captains were nowhere to be found, and if Ukitake-taichou chose this moment to come up behind him and offer him candy --

"Captain," Matsumoto murmured, draping herself over him from behind. He was torn between an urge to shout at her again and a simple sigh of relief that she was here at last. At least there was _one_ dependable thing in Seireitai.

"Matsumoto," he muttered in what was only a moderately surly manner. "Get off me. That means both breasts."

"Captain," she sighed again, arms locking round him, and he barely had time to realise just how cold her flesh was before her teeth met in his neck.

--

"Mayuri-sama," Nemu said.

"What is it?" Kurotsuchi Mayuri snarled. There was some sort of commotion going on outside, so in keeping with Twelfth Division's finest traditions, he had sent out some expendable minions to find out what was going on and locked the doors behind them. He hadn't been in the best of moods before that: the whole Aizen Sousuke mess was a drain on his valuable time which could be better spent in valuable research, and as for the whole Quincy debacle, Yamamoto-soutaichou had made it very clear that the way back to an isolation cell for the rest of eternity was very close and very specific and involved Yamamoto-soutaichou finding out that Kurotsuchi had performed one single unethical experiment more.

Nobody had any _priorities_, that was the problem with the world.

"Mayuri-sama," Nemu whispered, "may I drink your blood, please?"

Kurotsuchi turned and stared at her. He hadn't programmed that into her. Well, he didn't think he had. While it would offer certain advantages for conditioning, maybe, and there would be the convenience of direct viral transmission . . . "Why?" he demanded.

"Because I have turned into a vampire and need to make you one as well," she replied obediently.

Kurotsuchi sniffed. He put a finger under her chin and tilted her head, examining her. Skin pallor, absolutely no lividity, sunken eyes, enlarged canines . . . "When did this happen?" he demanded furiously. "Who _dared_ experiment on you? You are my personal design!"

"Tousen Kaname did it," Nemu answered, her eyes fixed on the curve of his wrist. "Please, Mayuri-sama. I am very thirsty. And there are significant advantages to the vampiric state."

"Hm." He decided that she might conceivably have a useful point there. "Very well. I will investigate this. You!" He turned to the nearest minion. "Fetch Akon at once!"

As the minion scurried out, Kurotsuchi turned back to Nemu. "You will drink Akon's blood for the moment. I will observe the process before conducting further tests."

Nemu's features twitched, a struggle evident beneath her calmness. "But . . . I have to drink your blood, Mayuri-sama . . . he said so . . ."

"How dare you contradict me!" Kurotsuchi snarled, backhanding her. She collapsed to the ground like a broken doll. "You are my vice-captain! My creation! You will only drink my blood as and when I order you to drink my blood! Now get up and bite Akon!"

"Sir?" Akon began to say as he walked through the door.

Nemu leapt on Akon, hands clenching on his shoulders, and forced him to the ground. She ignored his screams and struggles, ripping back his lab coat and biting into his neck, lapping at his blood.

"Fascinating," Kurotsuchi muttered, leaning over to observe the process better. This could have very interesting implications. And of course he had plenty of other minions that he could feed to Nemu if necessary.

A stray thought made him wonder if this was one of those unethical acts that Yamamoto-soutaichou had mentioned. Possibly, he decided. But an unethical act done in private didn't really exist if nobody ever heard about it.

Besides, surely nobody could _possibly_ object to him dissecting his own vice-captain.

--

Yumichika led the two young men towards Seireitai, cursing the necessity to move at a mere running pace. He could understand the reason for Yoruichi-san's orders: they had to get the news to Seireitai as fast as possible, and he had no doubt that she and the others could deal with Kuchiki-taichou and his little sister, vampirised or not. (After all, the man wasn't Eleventh. That said it all, really.)

But being forced to move at this pace in order to allow the two others to keep up with him was irritating. No, it was frustrating. It was irksome. It was --

"Ho, Ayasegawa!" Hisagi's voice interrupted his search for the perfect word. The man was standing some distance ahead, waving at them. "Thank goodness you're here!"

"And where else should I be?" Yumichika snapped. "We have urgent news for Seireitai, so if you don't mind --"

"Was that what Madarame tried to say?" Hisagi demanded.

Yumichika stopped. So did the other two. "What?" He could feel a trace of concern in his belly, no matter how much he knew that Ikkaku could take care of himself. "What do you mean? Tried?"

Hisagi frowned. The moonlight was pale on his face. "He staggered into our encampment -- we're on watch on this section, because of the recent patrol difficulties. He tried to say something but then he collapsed, and none of us have enough healing kidou to wake him. We were about to carry him in to Fourth, but if you know what's going on --"

"Let me see him," Yumichika demanded. "Which way are you camped?"

"This way," Hisagi said, jerking a thumb northwards. "About a quarter of a mile. I came out when I sensed your reiatsu coming this way."

"We didn't sense an encampment there," the Quincy boy said, frowning.

Hisagi shrugged. "To be honest with you, most of my men aren't strong enough that you _would_ sense them. But none of us have the manpower we'd like at the moment. If you want to see him before they take him to Fourth, Ayasegawa . . ."

"I'm coming," Yumichika said curtly. He let the Quincy and Sado follow, striding in the direction Hisagi had indicated, and felt the other shinigami drop into step beside him. "Tell me," he said, lowering his voice, "is he badly hurt?"

Hisagi shrugged again. "Well. Yes. You really think anything less would stop him? But he'll be all right if we can get him to a healer fast enough. I don't suppose you have any healing kidou, do you?"

Yumichika shook his head. "It's not a priority in Eleventh."

"No," Hisagi said dryly, "I'm sure it isn't."

Yumichika sniffed, and drew ahead. He could see the small encampment now: a couple of tents, a dozen men, one on watch saluting Hisagi as they approached. "Is he in one of the tents?"

"The smaller one," Hisagi said. "We can't afford a fire, on a night like this. Too obvious."

"I suppose that's sensible," Yumichika allowed. Of course, Eleventh would have had a fire, but for the weaker Divisions it would be more practical to stay unnoticed. "Do you mind --" He considered how to say it. "That is -- Ikkaku's an old friend, and if I can wake him up he won't be too embarrassed about me seeing him wounded, but for other people . . ."

"Of course," Hisagi said. "We'll wait outside. But he really does need to be moved back to Fourth as soon as possible, if we can't heal him out here."

Yumichika nodded. "Of course." He glanced back to his two followers. "Would you two please wait a moment? I won't be long."

The Quincy was frowning, but he nodded.

Yumichika turned away from Hisagi, heading towards the doorway of the tent. He was calm and controlled. He knew it. There was nothing in his pace that could betray any uncertainty, any undue concern, or all the gods forbid, any actual _worry_ about Ikkaku, because none of that would have been graceful, but all the same --

Hisagi's right arm locked round him, trapping his right arm against his side. In the moonlight he could see the muscles of the other shinigami's bare arm clearly defined and flexed, as precise as an anatomy model. Hisagi's movements were as careful and exact, just the sort of thing that might be expected from an Academy-raised fighter rather than one of the more freestyle types of Eleventh, and Yumichika found himself admiring it in a distant sort of way even as he struggled to reach his zanpakutou's hilt. The punch to his kidneys. The kick to his ankle. The stamp to the back of the knee. The full weight of Hisagi on him as he went down, and the knee grinding into the small of his back. The hand trapping his wrists. The other hand in his hair, pulling back hard so that his head was wrenched back and he knew, with a fear as cold as the moonlight, just exactly why Hisagi was exposing his throat.

--

Ishida would have said that he was expecting Hisagi's move, but it wasn't exactly an expectation; it was a desperate hope that he was wrong. It had all been too obvious. The convenient meeting, the perfectly timed reason to distract Ayasegawa Yumichika (really, without having to make any dubious suggestions, it was quite obvious that he and Madarame were _friends_, of course he'd want to see him), the camp full of quiet unsmiling men all watching them, the way that it just happened to be along the nearest convenient route to Seireitai . . .

Even then, Hisagi's speed and precision took him by surprise. He was pounding Ayasegawa into the ground and wrenching at his neck before Ishida could even finish raising his hand. The other shinigami were leaping at him and at Chad, mouths open now to show fangs.

But really, Ishida reflected as he started firing arrows round in an arc, carefully calibrating his force to stun and knock back rather than to kill, if he _hadn't_ been expecting something, the situation would have been even worse.

"Problem," Chad grunted. He slammed a burst of power in the other direction, back to back with Ishida. "You think Ayasegawa-san needs our help?"

Ishida glanced across. Hisagi had torn the elegant orange scarf off Ayasegawa's throat and was running his tongue over it. "Yes," he said succinctly.

"Right," Chad said. Another blow from his armoured hand knocked back a persistent vampire shinigami. He strode across the clearing towards the struggling pair, light gleaming round his fist as the force gathered.

--

Yumichika was aware of the noise elsewhere in the clearing. He hoped that the two others could hold off Hisagi's men. The situation was depressingly obvious now that he was having his nose rubbed in it. He hoped that nobody else would suffer for the minor mistake that he had made. (He'd never personally have rated Hisagi as so wily or devious. Maybe someone else had given him the plan to carry out.)

Hisagi's fingers raked against the side of his neck as he ripped Yumichika's scarf away. For a moment, white-hot wrath overrode the black panic that was fermenting in Yumichika's stomach, and he managed to half-wrench one of his arms loose.

"Not so fast," Hisagi breathed, getting a grip on Yumichika's wrist again. He leaned forward and ran his tongue along Yumichika's throat. His breath was as cold as his hands. "Remember when we were in this position before? When you got me down on the ground and just Isucked/I all the life out of me? This time it's my turn, Fourth Seat Ayasegawa, and I'm so _very_ hungry."

"Shut up!" Yumichika snapped. He tried to push the other man off, but unfortunately physical strength and weight and leverage and simple gravity were all against him. This couldn't be happening. This _couldn't_. Not to him. It couldn't. "Don't be an idiot, Hisagi! We can help you --"

"You can't even help yourself," Hisagi growled, and bit.

His teeth went in so slowly.

The ground in front of Yumichika was white and black in the moonlight, barred with shadows from the clouds overhead. He could count the blades of grass, the fragments of earth. Hisagi's hand in his hair, Hisagi's hand on his wrists, Hisagi's weight on his back, Hisagi's teeth in his neck. Control. Loss of control. Breathing. Breathe in, breathe out, try to think of anything, anything at all but the mouth on his neck, the way that he somehow _knew_ that Hisagi was enjoying the tenseness of his bowed body, the straining of his muscles, that Hisagi's mouth on his neck felt like something so much more intimate. The screams in the background so distant now, the way that the peacock spread its blue wings in his mind and shrieked in affronted scorn, each separate beat of his heart.

"No," Sado said. His armoured fist took Hisagi in the side of the body, breaking his grip on Yumichika and throwing him across the clearing in a a white blur that left aftertrails of glimmering power behind it.

Yumichika came to his feet, coughing and gasping for breath, moving with the reflexes that had been trained into him and without any sort of conscious thought. Fujikujaku leapt into his hand without a moment's hesitation, the hilt nestling into his palm and soothing his fingers. He could feel the blood running thick and hot down his neck. He moved for Hisagi smoothly, leading with his left side, as he brought his zanpakutou round and up in an arc that was going to _take Hisagi's head off his shoulders_.

Hisagi came up from where he'd been thrown, pulling his own zanpakutou from its sheath as he did, and the blade came up in time to meet Yumichika's own, a fraction of an inch from Hisagi's neck.

Hisagi grinned like a wolf, the blood still black on his lips, and leaned forward. "You first," he said, "and then --"

Yumichika hissed between his teeth, and retreated a pace, disengaging his blade. He didn't have time to invoke shikai, as Hisagi pressed the attack at once, and the two of them darted across the clearing, attacking and blocking.

--

"Do you think we should interfere?" Chad asked. The other shinigami vampires had run away or were unconscious.

"Well." Ishida thought about it. Frankly, he wasn't certain which way the fight was going to go. Both of the men seemed more or less equal in terms of speed and strength, and neither of them was pausing long enough to let the other fire off any kidou or release their zanpakutou. There was something unpleasantly personal about the way that they were trying to kill each other. "Ayasegawa-san is Eleventh. He'd probably object."

"We don't have the time to wait, though," Chad pointed out. "We've got to get the message through."

"If one of them got Hisagi-fukutaichou, then they're already there," Ishida said weakly. But he could understand Chad's point of view. He was just grateful that it wasn't _him_ fighting. He knew how he'd feel if someone like Kurosaki broke in on a fight of his. "But we can't let Hisagi get away. If he reports to someone --"

Chad nodded. "Right."

Ishida nodded in return. The two of them separated, moving to bracket the pair of shinigami.

---

Yumichika was being uncomfortably reminded of the last time that he'd fought Hisagi Shuuhei -- except, unfortunately, for the bit where he invoked Fujikujaku and utterly devastated the petty-minded idiot. He was losing. Short of a miracle, he honestly didn't think he was going to win this fight. It was clear that Hisagi remembered the fight as well; that was why he kept on rushing Yumichika, forcing him to keep the battle hand-to-hand and sword-to-sword, and not giving him a chance to invoke his zanpakutou.

_This is quite intolerable_, he decided. _If Ikkaku hears about me being defeated like this, I'll never live it down . . ._

He dimly felt the prickle of growing reiatsu in the background, but the blasts of force took him by surprise: one huge pulse of energy that struck the ground between him and Hisagi, making them both skip backwards, and then a rain of shining white arrows behind Hisagi, knocking him off his feet and leaving him sprawling on the ground for a crucial moment.

It was enough. "Bloom, Fujikujaku!" he commanded, and if his voice was just a little shaky, a little bit cracked, then there was nobody here from Eleventh to hear it.

But as the blade split and curved in his hand, a new dread struck him. What if the same thing happened that had happened before with Urahara? What if, along with Hisagi's energy, he drank in the other man's vampirism? What if he became a _thing_ like Hisagi or Urahara?

"Quick!" the Quincy shouted. Hisagi was scrambling to his feet again. "We can get Inoue to heal him --"

Hisagi turned his head, quick as a snake, to glance at the Quincy, who shut his mouth with a snap as though he had just realised how unwise, how _utterly_ stupid, it had been to say such a thing in the presence of a vampire who wasn't showing any signs whatever of wanting to be healed, or indeed of wanting to do anything except drink blood.

Yumichika sighed. As usual, it was up to him to sort things out. He _reached_, letting Fujikujaku's tendrils float out like feathers to ensnare Hisagi, and ignored Hisagi's screaming and flailing as he drank in his life like wine. (He'd tried thinking of it as tea once, for the sake of the experiment, but he had to conclude that tea didn't quite have the emphatic sting that this sort of energy did.) And this time it was safe enough: Hisagi collapsed and lay there, staring at the clouded sky, his lips moving in whispered curses, and Yumichika was well, even healed, and there was nothing to worry about at all.

He touched the tips of his canine teeth with his tongue. No. Not pointed. No more than usual. Nothing to worry about.

Wait. There was something to worry about. He turned to the two young men. "Thank you for your assistance," he said icily, courtesy driving him to say the words, however little he meant them. "However, I would be grateful if you would refrain from mentioning my zanpakutou to anyone else. Anyone. At all."

Sado shrugged. "All right," he said. "But are we going to take him with us?"

"We could leave him here," the Quincy said. "And tie him to a tree . . ." He trailed off. "No, one of his men would come back and untie him. But . . ."

"We are not going to kill him," Yumichika said firmly.

"Bastard," Hisagi hissed, barely audible.

Yumichika smiled down at him benignly. He now realised what true victory was. It was having Hisagi healed and then letting Hisagi apologise to him later. Preferably in fulsome detail and in front of other people. That would do nicely. Just killing Hisagi here and now wasn't any sort of victory at all: it was merely an end to the fight, and a fight that had been interfered in at that. True victory would be saving Hisagi _in spite of_ Hisagi himself.

"We'll tie him and bring him along," Yumichika said. He brushed at the healing wounds on the side of his neck and spared a bitter thought for his scarf. "He can give us valuable information on Aizen and his plans."

"But if they managed to get him," Sado said, "that means they're already in Seireitai."

"So?" Yumichika sniffed. "I have no doubt that Zaraki-taichou will be leading the resistance."

"And they've planted people along our route," Sado said patiently. "First there was Kuchiki Rukia and her brother, and then there was Hisagi-san here. Aizen must have known we'd be coming and that we'd be coming this way. How many other people could be waiting for us?"

Yumichika paused to think that over for a moment. "We can't split up," he decided. "But we can take a route off the beaten track. That should let us avoid any further ambushes."

"But won't that slow us down?" the Quincy demanded nervously.

Yumichika tossed his hair back. "As Sado-kun has just said, they're there already. We can't stop them from arriving. Our job now is to --" He paused, trying to work out exactly what their job was. "Our task is to save what we can. All the Captains must be informed. We can only hope that Ikkaku and that Ise-fukutaichou made it through. Yamamoto-soutaichou needs the most up-to-date report from our prisoner and anything else we know. There are hours of the night yet to go. It may be bad. We need to stop it from getting worse."

"You're all doomed anyhow," Hisagi whispered, and licked his lips.

"Not yet," Yumichika answered.

---


End file.
